Mustang Not Seen for Air-limo Network

Few, if any, Citation Mustang orders are for air-limo operations, and Cessna appears neither surprised nor alarmed. According to Lewis Campbell, chairman, president and CEO of Cessna parent Textron, “an air-taxi [network] is going to be tough to make work financially unless the airplane is very inexpensive, much less expensive than the $2.4 million Mustang.” Less expensive airplanes are “smaller and more cramped.” Campbell also noted that air-limo VLJs need to be filled up to allow a decent profit for the operator and still be affordable to the user. “So I do have my doubts about air-taxi networks. But truthfully I hope it works because it just gets more people flying business jets, and the more they fly business jets the less they are going to want to fly the airlines and the sooner they are going to get into one of our products.”