Textron Aviation to end Mustang jet production

The Cessna Citation Mustang business jet’s 12-year run is coming to an end.

Textron Aviation said Thursday the final production Mustang has rolled off the factory floor and will be delivered in the coming weeks.

The world’s first entry-level business jet, which was introduced to rave reviews in 2002, was manufactured at the company’s plant in Independence. But sales faltered after the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 and never recovered.

A Textron Aviation spokeswoman said Thursday that the company won’t cut jobs in Independence despite wrapping up Mustang production. No jobs in Wichita are expected to be affected by the move, either.

“The Caravan line is moving to Independence … and our Wichita workforce is very engaged as we bring new products online like the Citation Longitude and, further down the road, the Cessna Denali,” Rosa Lee Argotsinger, Textron Aviation’s director of communications, said in an e-mail.

Besides the Mustang, employees in Independence also manufacture the larger Citation M2 business jet as well as the Cessna 172, 182, 206 and TTx single-piston-engine airplanes.

The company would not disclose how many employees work in Independence. In 2015, Textron said it employed more than 9,000 people in Kansas.

By all accounts, the $3.35 million Mustang enjoyed a successful run, with Textron Aviation delivering 472 of the five-passenger, 1,200-nautical-mile range jets between 2005 and 2016, according to data from the General Aviation Manufacturers Association.

When the all-new design jet was introduced at the 2002 National Business Aviation Association Convention in Orlando Fla., scores of customers lined up at Cessna’s booth to put a deposit on the airplane. The company took 170 orders that first day.

“The Mustang proved to be an incredible success for our company and our customers,” Rob Scholl, Textron Aviation senior vice president of sales and marketing, said in Thursday’s release.

Textron said it would continue to provide service support for the Mustang and its owners.

The Mustang was extremely popular with people who both own and fly their aircraft.

Jeff Greenberg of Wichita is one of them.

“Without that airplane, I wouldn’t have been a Cessna customer,” said Greenberg, who took delivery of his Mustang in August 2009 and has about 1,100 hours of flight time on the airplane.

Greenberg said the Mustang is safe, is cost effective to operate and gets him above or around bad weather.

“It’s a comfortable cabin, and from a pilot standpoint, it’s the easiest cockpit to get into and out of … no twisting and turning and climbing over things.”

“There’s a passionate following for the Mustang,” said business aviation forecaster Rolland Vincent. “For many people it was their first jet.”

But, Vincent said, demand for it began to wane after the financial crisis in 2008 and 2009, which was a peak year for the Mustang with 125 deliveries.

And demand never really recovered. In 2014 and 2015, Mustang deliveries totaled eight for each year. In 2016, Textron Aviation delivered 10 Mustangs.

“That’s not where the market is alive right now,” Vincent said.

Vincent thinks the 2013 introduction of the Citation M2 – whose differences with the Mustang include a private lavatory, room for two additional passengers and additional range – steered away potential Mustang customers.

“The real story is keeping owners and operators in the Textron family, and I think they do that well,” he said of the M2 assuming the spot of Cessna’s entry-level Citation jet.

Scholl confirmed in the release that the $4.5 million M2 will now serve as the entry-level Citation jet.

“We believe it will carry on the legacy as the entry-level jet that pilots want and need,” he said in the release.

This story was originally published May 11, 2017 at 2:26 PM with the headline "Textron Aviation to end Mustang jet production."