Hawker Beechcraft looks beyond US for growth

Hawker Beechcraft anticipates the majority of its aircraft sales growth will come from outside of North America over the next five years.

With its size and reach, the US General Aviation market has traditionally offered the greenest pastures for aircraft manufacturers. According to figures released by the General Aviation Manufacturers Association, 990 (nearly 73 per cent) of the 1357 GA aircraft delivered in the first three quarters of 2010 were delivered to North America.

A decade ago the US market accounted for more than 70 per cent of new aircraft sales for Hawker Beechcraft, however the manufacturer is now eyeing off growth potential in emerging markets including Africa, Asia, China, India, the Middle East, Russia and South America.

“Overall, the drivers of demand for new aircraft purchases are slowly returning to pre-financial crisis levels, and demand is currently stronger in these emerging markets than in North America and Europe,” Sean McGeough, Hawker Beechcraft President of Europe, Middle East and Africa, said.

To put the numbers into perspective, the installed base of Hawker Beechcrafts currently in Asia, which includes Australia, is a mere six per cent of the corresponding figure for the US. Likewise, Hawker Beechcraft’s installed base in each of Russia, the Middle East, Africa and Latin America is between 20 and 25 per cent of US figures.

“There are a number of reasons for this variation around the world, including the availability of financing tools, customer service issues and a lack of parts supply programs,” McGeough said. “With increased globalisation and regulatory liberalisation, barriers to growth in these markets are falling.”

Hawker Beechcraft is cautiously optimistic that the global GA aircraft market will see recovery from 2012, and as such has been investing in emerging growth markets.

Part of that investment, as we reported in our Nov/Dec 2010 print issue, is a US$250,000 plan to base a permanent fleet of five demonstrator aircraft in the Asia Pacific region. The manufacturer plans to deploy a King Air 350i, as well as one example of each of the Hawker 400XP, Hawker 4000, Hawker 900 and Beechcraft Premier business jets to the Asia Pacific region, where they’ll be based at the various facilities of regional representative Hawker Pacific.