They barely have a trickle of Arrows coming out of the factory anyway. I think they were making maybe 3/yr the last few years, all of which probably went to UND. Saratogas were killed by the Matrix. I would think they'll try to kill the Archer next and leave the Warrior as basic trainer, if they even stay in the 4 seat single market, which I tend to doubt. They're moving up the value chain, since their old airframes can't compete with the Cirrus and Diamond, or the installed base of 172s.
Piper shipments for the last 4 years:
[row][cell]Piper[/cell][cell]2004[/cell][cell]2005[/cell][cell]2006[/cell][cell]2007[/cell][/row][row][cell]Warrior[/cell][cell]18[/cell][cell]37[/cell][cell]19[/cell][cell]27[/cell][/row][row][cell]Archer[/cell][cell]19[/cell][cell]16[/cell][cell]29[/cell][cell]16[/cell][/row][row][cell]Arrow[/cell][cell]12[/cell][cell]9[/cell][cell]5[/cell][cell]8[/cell][/row][row][cell]Saratoga[/cell][cell]9[/cell][cell]8[/cell][cell]10[/cell][cell]0[/cell][/row][row][cell]Turbo Saratoga[/cell][cell]31[/cell][cell]37[/cell][cell]37[/cell][cell]39[/cell][/row]
Looks like they effectively killed the normally aspirated Saratoga last year. And yes, there were very few Arrows being sold. Because of Piper's neglect of the four-seater market, they got run over. The Arrow used to be a plane that many private non-flight-school owners bought as a cheaper alternative to the higher-performance birds, and many used Arrows are owned by individual pilots. Now, the Arrow is pretty much a flight-school airplane.
I would bet the Seminole goes next. It shares a lot of parts with the Arrow and the sales figures for the last 4 years are 11, 29 (15 in one quarter), 11, and 14. It's a flight-school-only type of airplane.
The 6X and 6XT have not been selling particularly well, either. In fact, Piper didn't sell any 6XT's last year, and only 12 6X's. These share a lot of parts with the Saratogas, so why keep them around?
Finally, the Seneca, while it has sold better the past couple of years than it did in the previous two, may be on thin ice as well - Once the above models are phased out, it'd be the odd duck of the bunch. As the last Hershey-bar plane Piper makes, it already kind of is!
That'd leave Piper with only two significantly different airframes - The PA-46 in three variants (turbocharged, turbo&pressurized, pressurized&turbine) and the jet. They have very little competition for the PA46 line, so as long as there continues to be a demand for that mission, they'll do OK as long as they don't sink too much money into the jet, which I think is going to be a flop.
Ugh.
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