page_title: Hawker Beechcraft
section_title: Late-2000s recession
hierarchical_section_title: Hawker Beechcraft / History / Late-2000s recession
caption_attribution_description: English: A Baron 58TC in flight
context_page_description: Hawker Beechcraft Corporation was an American aerospace manufacturing company that built the Beechcraft and Hawker business jet lines of aircraft between 2006 and 2013. The company headquarters was in Wichita, Kansas, United States, with maintenance and manufacturing locations worldwide. The history of Hawker Beechcraft originated in 1994 when Raytheon merged its Beech Aircraft Corporation and Raytheon Corporate Jets units.
  In 2006, Raytheon sold the company to a consortium of Goldman Sachs and Onex Corporation. This deal left the company with a heavy burden of debt which it struggled to support from the economic crisis of 2008 onwards. In April 2012 it defaulted on interest payments and was in breach of banking covenants; this caused widespread speculation that it would enter bankruptcy.
  On May 3, 2012, the company entered bankruptcy, filing voluntary petitions under Chapter 11 in US Bankruptcy Court. The bankruptcy resulted in the company accepting an offer to be purchased by Superior Aviation Beijing.
context_section_description: In response to the late-2000s recession the company announced the lay-off of 490 employees at its Wichita facility in January 2009.
  On February 3, 2009, CEO Jim Schuster announced that a further 2,300 employees would be laid off before the end of the year. The company indicated that orders for aircraft had slowed down, especially by fractional jet operators. Schuster said:
  The government's stimulus package has failed to sufficiently loosen credit markets, which are absolutely vital to the success of HBC and our industry...The media and some politicians have cast general aviation as a wasteful extravagance instead of a critical business tool and the source of millions of American jobs...This is an extremely painful step for the HBC family and community, but one that is absolutely necessary. While I wish I could commit to you that this will be our final action, I cannot do so at this time given the extreme volatility in the marketplace.
  After completing cuts of 25% of its workforce (2800 employees) between October 2008 and August 2009, the company indicated that further significant cuts were required. The company's second quarter 2009 results over 2008 data showed that aircraft deliveries had fallen from 129 to 78 aircraft. The company achieved orders of US$450M during the period April to June 2009, but had orders totalling US$366M cancelled in the same period. Overall the company's sales were reduced from US$1.03B in the second quarter of 2008 to US$816.3M in the same period of 2009. One customer, NetJets, cancelled orders for 12 aircraft and deferred all other scheduled deliveries until the end of 2010.
  By late August 2009, the company laid off an additional 300 workers, bringing the total number of layoffs to 3100. On August 31, 2009, the company indicated that it was slowing development of the Beechcraft Premier II, moving its first delivery date into late 2012 or early 2013 due to the poor market for business aircraft. In late September 2009 the company issued 60-day lay-off notices for another 240 employees. These cuts included 87 positions on the Horizon production line and the rest in the King Air line. This set of lay-offs brought the total lay-offs to 3,553 since October 2008, which was about 36 percent of the company workforce.
  The company reported that it lost more than US$63M in the first quarter of 2010, even after it cut 2,700 jobs in 2009. In July 2010 the union representing workers at Hawker Beechcraft sent a letter to its members explaining that it was in negotiations at the company's request to deal with, as the company stated "serious challenges... a spectrum of possibilities for the company's future footprint...the likely impact on its workforce in all its locations." The union warned its members in the letter, "The picture we are getting is of a Hawker Beechcraft Wichita that will shrink almost immediately by 75 percent or more within two years, without a guarantee of even the last few jobs staying". The move would reduce the company's work force from 6000 to 1500 workers. CEO Bill Boisture confirmed the situation indicating that demand for the company's products had declined drastically and permanently and that the company may move significant amounts of work to Mississippi, Louisiana, or even outside the United States.
  In September 2010 the company announced further cuts of 350 salaried positions to be completed by the end of October 2010. On October 16, 2010, union machinists at Hawker Beechcraft voted against a new seven-year contract that would have included a 10% pay cut and higher worker health insurance contributions aimed at keeping the company from moving its operations out of Kansas. Union leadership had recommended that its rank and file accept the company's offer rather than risk losing their jobs, but a majority of the union workers voted against the contract, citing their belief that the company will leave Kansas regardless of incentives and concessions. In December 2010 the company signed an agreement with the Kansas state government to retain facilities in Wichita until at least 2020 
caption: Beechcraft 58TC Baron
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