Executives at both Textron and Cessna have long indicated that production would slide further in 2010. Cessna Chairman Jack Pelton predicted in September, and some analysts feared, that Cessna production could have fallen to as low as 200 Citations for 2010. Cessna recently restarted is Citation Sovereign line – the last of the production lines to reopen since they were shuttered last summer – but a company spokesman said that all the lines were running “at greatly reduced rates” (BA, Jan. 11/15).

About 105 of the Citations produced this year will be Cessna’s smallest, least expensive model, the Citation Mustang. The remainder should be fairly evenly spread among the other Citation lines, although Textron executives last week declined to provide specifics.

They did say, however, that the majority of the deliveries would occur later in the year. Frank Connor, executive vice president and chief financial officer, said the company was planning for 30-35 jet deliveries in the first quarter, “which will result in a segment loss for the quarter,” Connor said. “As volumes recover through the balance of the year, we expect margins to follow accordingly.” He predicted that Cessna would turn a slight profit for the year, somewhere in the “low single-digits.”

Cessna also will incur about $30 million in pretax restructuring charges in 2010, Connor said. Those charges are attributed to a shift in work from Columbus, Ga. and some work in Wichita, Kan. to Cessna’s facility in Mexico. Donnelly noted that, “We continue to work on ways to reduce our costs, including consolidation of facilities and moving certain activities to lower-cost countries.”

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