VERO BEACH, FL., Feb. 7, 2018 – Piper Aircraft, Inc. announced today a 23% increase in aircraft deliveries for 2017 as well as a 27% increase in total billings.
The substantial growth was driven by a 50% YOY increase of Piper single engine primary trainer aircraft deliveries as well as a 70% increase in deliveries of multiengine trainers. Additionally, sales of Piper’s flagship product, the M600, expanded by 59% which helped drive Piper total billings up by nearly $41M vs 2016. International deliveries of Piper products showed moderate growth of 5%, resulting in 25% of Piper products being shipped to countries outside of North America.
In addition to Piper’s sales success, the company celebrated 80 years of manufacturing excellence during 2017 as well as the completion of 6 new amended type certificates. The continued rise in demand for Piper trainers has resulted in order backlog into 2019 as well as a 25% increase in workforce.
“Piper’s ability to level-load aircraft production has allowed us to meet solid financial growth and performance goals while expanding our worldwide sales visibility and efforts, especially in the pilot training realm,” said Piper President and CEO Simon Caldecott. “As we look towards 2018, we are excited about the growth in demand for aircraft trainers and the resulting contracts that we have been awarded, which has helped create a backlog of orders. Additionally working with our full-service Dealers, we look to continue to grow M-class demand and sales,” he added.