Textron Aviation CEO Sees Positive Turn in Bizav Market
Textron Aviation CEO Ron Draper outlines the airframer's current market conditions during Wichita Aero Club keynote.
Textron Aviation president and CEO Ron Draper speaks with Wichita Aero Club members on Tuesday. (Photo: Ricardo Reitmeyer/Visual Media Group)
Textron Aviation president and CEO Ron Draper speaks with Wichita Aero Club members on Tuesday. (Photo: Ricardo Reitmeyer/Visual Media Group)

Textron Aviation president and CEO Ron Draper told a Wichita Aero Club luncheon on Tuesday that the company is seeing some positive metrics that portend increasing demand for the airframer, including utilization of its combined fleet of some 14,000 Beechcraft King Air turboprops and Cessna Citation business jets. Not only has utilization returned to pre-pandemic levels but it is exceeding them by “probably 15 percent” since April, he said during a 40-minute keynote speech that he opened by telling Aero Club members that “nobody’s leaving today until at least one person buys an airplane.”