Piper not supporting aircraft over 25 years old?

[TangoWhiskey]

A post on the red says that Piper has officially denied the story. The story is inaccurate. The CEO was misquoted. There are no plans to stop support.

You would have to wonder why he would make this announcement at the Cherokee Owner's fly in. Even the dumbest CEO would plan to make a speech the audience would be apt to like.

My boss was AT the fly-in, HEARD the speech. Here's his comments:

This is a complete exaggeration of the facts. First, there were Cherokee 140's there, but he is correct that no one opted to enter. I know of at least 4 that were there, but possibly more.

Also, Mr. Bass didn't state that he would not be building parts for planes over 25 years old. What he did say was that Piper couldn't be expected to build EVERY part for every plane it has ever built. He explained that some of the tools needed to build some of the parts were destroyed in the 3 hurricanes that hit them about 2 years ago.

He also said it didn't make sense from a financial standpoint to build and stock parts for every model that would rarely get sold. He did say they would build and stock lots of parts, but simply couldn't guarantee that he would stock all of them.

From the management viewpoint of a struggling aviation company, I would have to agree with him. In short, he basically stated that Piper cannot be all things to everyone and survive.

What I heard and what others chose to hear were clearly two different things. Jay put the same thread on Piper Owner's website and several people peppered him with their version of what they heard.

 

[Tom-D]

My boss was AT the fly-in, HEARD the speech. Here's his comments:

What he said is much more rational than what was posted, in fact that is what Cessna has been doing for many years.