Cessna gives its customers wide latitude in jet’s design

Nearly four weeks ago, Textron Aviation Cessna received Federal Aviation Administration type certification for its newest business jet, the $16.3 million Citation Latitude.

It was a milestone for Cessna, because achieving certification allows deliveries of the nine-passenger, midsize business jets to begin now in the third quarter.

The Latitude is a particularly important aircraft for Cessna, because it is the closest it has come in nine years to rolling out a nearly-new-design aircraft. It’s not a pure clean-sheet aircraft, because its wings and tail come from the Citation Sovereign-Plus, which is the next step up in the Citation line of business jets.

But the Latitude’s fuselage is a fresh design and a big reason why the aircraft should impress Citation customers looking to move up the Cessna product line, as well as customers who are new or returning to the brand.

Bigger cabin

A stand-out among the features of the new jet’s cabin is its flat floor, its width and its 6-foot-high ceiling. The larger cabin also extends to the cockpit, where the two pilots who operate the aircraft will have more room, Cessna officials said.

The ideas for the Latitude’s cabin, Cessna officials said, germinated from potential owners and operators who asked for a midsize jet that didn’t make them feel crowded.

“Really, when we started putting this aircraft together, it was extremely important that we carry forward the voice of our customer,” said Kriya Shortt, Textron Aviation senior vice president of sales and marketing. “What customers told us overwhelmingly was they wanted a larger-cabin aircraft.”

Planning for the airplane began in 2011, and at the center of that process was the customer input, which Cessna garnered from its existing base of Citation owners as well as people who have never owned a business jet but may be considering such a purchase.

“It’s like a dance,” Shortt said of the process of designing a new jet with customer input. That input – their wants and needs – must be balanced with what designers can achieve and the company can manufacture, she said.

“All of those things play to one another,” she said.

Shortt, who this week was traveling the country with one of the company’s Latitude demonstrators, said that input comes even after the airplane design is finalized and certified. She said Cessna is asking for that input now as well, for consideration in future development programs and future enhancements to the Latitude.

“That feedback is not something that happens just once and goes away,” Shortt said.

She said as important as the wider, taller cabin on the Latitude was to potential customers, so was aircraft reliability, efficiency and performance, which is “what they know to be true” of other jets in the Citation lineup.

Other features unique to the Latitude are its cabin windows, which are 30 percent larger than other Citations, and new cabin cooling and pressurization systems, which will make passengers in the cabin feel as if they are flying at 5,950 feet even at the jet’s maximum operating altitude of 45,000 feet. That pressurization system should make Latitude passengers and crew feel less fatigued, Cessna officials said.

The airplane also has an electric cabin door and the capability to take off on shorter runways – 3,580 feet – which provides for travel to more cities and airports that are smaller, Cessna officials said.

First flight of the Latitude was in February 2014. Four test Latitudes made 690 flights totaling 1,697 flight hours.

Strong sales expected

The airplane is expected to have strong sales, though Cessna isn’t disclosing orders for the Latitude beyond the fall 2012 order placed by fractional aircraft company NetJets, an order that calls for up to 150 Latitudes – a firm order for 25 with options for 125 more.

Shortt said the Latitude has been well received by customers and potential customers who have seen it for the first time.

“Their initial response is very positive,” she said. “They’re surprised by the size of the aircraft and the spaciousness of the cabin.”

Aviation forecaster Rolland Vincent said the timing of the airplane’s June certification “is perfect.”

“The (midsize jet) market … is the segment that is expected now to grow, according to our surveys of owners and operators,” Vincent said. “They’ve been doing all the right things as far as I can see,” such as flying the airplane overseas for its May debut at the European Business Aviation Conference & Exposition.

Last week, Vincent said, Cessna had a Latitude demonstrator at a National Business Aviation Association regional forum at Teterboro Airport in New Jersey.

But Vincent said that, from what he knows, new orders for the jet are off to a sluggish start.

“From what we understand, the backlog isn’t very deep, which frankly is a little discouraging,” he said. “But now that they’re flying and showing the airplane, it should be resonating.

“They’ve got a great airplane to demonstrate. Really, it’s all about getting in front of prospects now.”

And there should be plenty of prospects. Vincent said the Latitude is a step-up airplane for owners of Citation Excel, XLS and XLS-Plus jets, and his firm estimates there are 880 of those jets operating today.

“It’s a much bigger tube and has a clean wing,” he said. “Everything about the airplane is spot on.”

Selling points

Wayne Plucker, aerospace and defense director for Frost & Sullivan, expects the Latitude to be a “very decent”-selling business jet for Cessna, adding that the midsize-jet segment should be “distinctly picking up” in terms of new orders.

Plucker said the Latitude’s cabin dimensions are different enough in the midsize category that it will “define a niche” for Cessna and the airplane.

“Things like the creature comforts of a little extra space … those kinds of things are selling points,” Plucker said. “Even if the customer can’t put his finger on it, it’s something that sticks in his mind.

“I think it (the Latitude) is important to Cessna’s sales, to have truly new models, to have something different.”

And once NetJets – the world’s largest fractional operator – begins taking delivery of the airplane, presses it into service and begins to get a sense of its efficiency and reliability, that could bode well for future Latitude sales.

“I think that could be a real draw to the airplane,” Plucker said.

This story was originally published July 1, 2015 at 6:53 PM with the headline "Cessna gives its customers wide latitude in jet’s design."