Piper Seemed To Be Doing SO Much Better... So Why The Switch?

Chuck Suma's replacement as President and CEO of New Piper Aircraft is raising eyes and questions throughout  the GA community. For the moment, calls to New Piper's new CEO aren't yet being returned so the mystery is growing.

Many of the questions center around the plan that Piper's new CEO, James K. Bass, has for a company that once was one of the three powerhouses in all of general aviation -- and how and if it can reclaim former glories. Bass is an experienced exec... having been CEO of Suntron Corp. from May 2001 to May 2005, and a former Senior VP at Sony. Bass also served in various positions in General Electric's aerospace group for some 15 years.

It's Bass' history with Suntron that is causing some concern -- years in which he shut down several plants and out-sourced a significant portion of the struggling company to Mexico -- operations that were then expanded significantly at the beginning of 2005 (over 300% in terms of available of manufacturing space). The natural concern with this bit of history revolves around whether Bass has been brought in to conduct a similar international move for Piper... which in recent days was showing strong signs of life and growth and didn't seem to require such a sudden and unexpected management shift.

New Piper recorded excellent numbers earlier this year when second quarter results compiled by GAMA showed an aggressive recovery from previous lows. First quarter sales of $22 million dollars were eclipsed by second quarter sales of $35 million (an astounding 66% boost)... and accompanied by recent agreements that appeared to indicate that persistent labor problems were on the way to a resolution. Product enhancements have been introduced in the form of new Avidyne glass cockpits for the strong-selling Meridian as well as several other airframes, while other panel upgrades were expected before the end of the year. To many, these indicators did not foreshadow the removal of Suma and the hiring of an outside person to fill the CEO/Presidential role -- unless big changes, such as a sale of the company, seemed to be in the cards.

For the moment, it's all guesswork and ANN, like the rest of aviation, looks forward to hearing what new CEO Bass has in store for one of the best-known names in GA. We'll keep you up to date as soon as we have an inkling of what they have in mind. More info to come...

FMI: www.newpiper.com