News

Hawker Beechcraft lays off personnel

Private jet manufacturer Hawker Beechcraft laid off 41 workers in its Salina last Friday.

Nicole Alexander, the company’s spokesperson, confirmed that a number of workers were streamlined last Friday. Deb Scheibler, program director in Great Bend for the Local Area 1 Workforce Board, announced the number of workers that were laid off.

Last February, company executives told their employees that as many as 2,300 of them were going to lose their jobs before the end of 2009. Late last year, almost 500 Hawker Beechcraft employees from Salina and Wichita lost their jobs.

“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,” commented Jim Schuster—chairman and chief executive officer for Hawker Beechcraft—in a letter addressed to the employees.

Last Monday, Dennis Lauver—president and chief executive officer of the Salina Area Chamber of Commerce—personally invited President Obama to visit Salina. Lauver wants the president to see and understand the effect on the region’s work force when “flying corporate jets is demonized.”

“Corporate planes, and the manufacturing of corporate planes, is an export industry,” maintained Lauver. “It helps balance the trade of this nation. When flying corporate jets is given a bad name, it hurts people in Salina. It puts the focus on the men and women who make those planes.”