BRAD HATT, HAWKER BUSINESS PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER,
RAYTHEON AIRCRAFT
Hawker Comes Home with NetJets Order
It's the first Farnborough since Raytheon Aircraft decided to bring
back the Hawker brand name, and the company is fresh on the heels
of a decision by NetJets to add the Hawker 400XP to its European
fractional fleet, as well as adding more 800XPs.
The 400XP is the former Beechjet 400A, repositioned as a Hawker
because the jet's customer profiles—corporate flight departments—were
more in line with Hawker than Beech, explains Raytheon Hawker business
President & General Manager Brad Hatt. "Beech products tend
be purchased primarily by individuals and entrepreneurs and smaller
companies," he says.
NetJets, exercising options disclosed in February, is adding 20
Hawker 800XPs and a like number of 400XPs
via a deal valued at more than $300 million. The aircraft will be
based in Europe and the United States following deliveries ranging
from 2005 to 2007.
A Raytheon release cites the jets' roomy cabin interiors, but the
deal "really was driven more by NetJets Europe growth," Hatt told
Show News. Raytheon also this past February inked a 10-year Hawker
maintenance pact with NetJets.
Meanwhile Hawker Aircraft Services and UK distributor NAC Aviation
have opened a joint satellite maintenance and sales facility at
Oxford, replete with 17,000-square-foot hangar, augmenting an existing
support unit in Chester. (NAC has relocated its former Farnborough
sales office to Chester too, and may undertake a charter operation
there.)
"We're back to our heritage and it's played very well," Hatt says,
noting that Airbus (formerly British Aerospace) still makes Hawker
fuselages and wings at the original Hawker facility in Chester.
"We are making a strong commitment to London and all of Europe,"
Hatt says, noting in addition to the UK action the establishment
this year of a new parts distribution center in Liege, Belgium.
—Rich Piellisch
Hawker Horizon to Be Ready This Year
The eight-passenger, composite-fuselaged Hawker Horizon business
jet should be ready for certification and first customer deliveries
by year-end, says Raytheon Aircraft's Hawker business president
Brad Hatt.
Aircraft RC-2 recently completed cold-weather testing in
Iqaluit, Northern Canada.
RC-4, the first Horizon to be fitted with a full interior
and paint, is entering functional and reliability trials this
summer. "We are nearing completion" of the certification process,
Hatt said on the eve of Farnborough.
RC-4 will be displayed at the National Business Aviation
Association show in Las Vegas in October. The 3,400-nmi range
Horizon is priced at $18.4 million.
'A Good Creative Solution'
"It was cost-prohibitive to go to Farnborough in the old
way," says Hawker chief Brad Hatt. "The Business Aircraft
Park was a good creative solution."
Raytheon Aircraft is represented here by its UK distributor,
NAC Aviation, which now bases its sales operations at Oxford
(also the new site of a joint Raytheon-NAC service center).
NAC is showing a Hawker 800XP here, as well as a Beech Premier
I and King Air 200.
Raytheon decided that the big UK show is too defense- and
airline-oriented to warrant a full-blown display of business
jets.
"We find it more cost-effective to participate in the European
Community through EBACE," Hatt told Show News in reference
to the European Business Aviation Conference & Exhibition
held each May in Geneva.
