SKYCATCHER to be built in China

[Aussie Steve]

SKYCATCHER TO BE MADE IN CHINA

 

Cessna has chosen the Chinese-government owned Shenyang Aircraft Corp. to build the Model 162 Skycatcher. Earlier this week, Cessna announced it would be building the Light Sport Aircraft offshore. In a news release, Cessna CEO Jack Pelton said the company needed top quality at a competitive price and SAC put it all together. "Our solution is to partner with SAC, a company with excellent facilities, state-of-the-art technologies and a workforce highly experienced in aircraft manufacturing. SkyCatcher customers will get an advanced design, high-quality workmanship and world-class product support, all at an affordable price from Cessna, a brand known and trusted worldwide." The move, coupled with Cessna's acquisition of Columbia Aircraft has dominated Cessna's profile in recent months as it continues to pile up record sales for its business jets.

 

 

[Mick]

Thought this might have drawn a few more comments.

 

C'mon guys, tell us what you think..............

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

The other option would be to build it in India. But did anyone think Australia having a chance??. Taking a company offshore to manufacture seems to be the thing to do now so why not an aircraft company.

 

ozzie

 

 

[Matt]

There's another media release that details the capabilities of this company and if you check out their website http://www.sac.com.cn you can see that they have been around for a long time and are producing military aircraft and contribute parts to Boeing, Airbus, BAE and Bombardier...suggest with that background they could probably put together a reasonably good quality 300KG aeroplane...no doubt at half the cost or less of an American or Australian equivalent.

 

Did anyone think Australia had a chance - nope, our labour costs are simply too high to compete with the developing industrial nations such as India, China etc.

 

It's not just manufacturing either...how many forum members are IT professionals? I work for CSC, globally we have about 110,000 staff, 1/4 of these in India, why? - the labour cost of an IT engineer is about 25% of the Australian equivalent. A pretty significant variance and compelling reason to move some or all of your business operations to these countries.