Piper Inks Massive Contracts for Training Airplanes

Piper Aircraft's president Simon Caldecott announced in a press conference at the Sun 'n Fun International Fly-In and Expo the company has inked contracts with multiple flight schools totaling several hundred Piper Archer TX training airplanes.

Caldecott announced that an order placed by ATP Flight School in 2013 for 100 Piper Archers TXs will be fulfilled with all options delivered by October. Along with that announcement, ATP committed to another 100 airplanes, with deliveries beginning by the end of the year. ATP already has the largest Piper fleet in the world. Once completed, this latest order will bring the ATP fleet up to more than 400 airplanes. With 42 locations around the country, ATP has provided professional flight training since 1984 and provides as much as $11,000 in tuition reimbursement through several airlines for pilots who are interested in an airline career.

Caldecott also reconfirmed the largest single trainer order in the company's extensive history. A Chinese flight school signed a contract for 152 airplanes, the delivery of which will begin this year.

These recent orders bring the company’s total backlog for training airplanes alone up to 550 units, Caldecott said. In 2009, Piper delivered 14 training airplanes, a number that will likely be around 145 this year. With such a strong order book, the total staff at Piper is now 941 employees, up from 560 people less than a decade ago and the company is continuing to hire more people.