Flight Design In Germany Facing Receivership

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Flight Design GmbH, based in Germany, said in a news release it has applied for “a planned receivership which allows for reorganization of the company.” The filing will enable the company to deal with a “liquidity crunch.”The crunch is driven mainly by one international customer that “has not settled a bill of over seven digit Euros,” the company said.The contract was for engineering services.An attorney appointed by the court, Knut Rebholz, said the most urgent task is to start negotiations to fund continuing operations. “The order situation of the company is good and the products have a very good international reputation in the market,” Rebholz added.CEO Matthias Betsch told a German news site, Sachsische Zeitung, “The company will continue to run normally. Customers will receive the usual service, deliveries proceed.”

Tom Peghiny, CEO of Flight Design USA, told AVweb that his company is separate and independent from Flight Design GmbH, but the situation in Germany does have an impact.”We couldn’t get aircraft from [Germany] for nearly two years,” he said. “We negotiated to be able to buy our airplanes and parts from AeroJones [a Taiwanese company operating in China]. Those negotiations were successful, and we expect to take delivery of the first airplanes from China next month.” AeroJones will be able to meet his needs for U.S. deliveries of two to three CTLS series aircraft per month, Peghiny said, and also can supply parts for the current fleet.

Peghiny added that he has orders and deposits in place for airplanes from Germany, “so we are actually creditors” of Flight Design GmbH. He said none of those airplanes on order were destined for U.S. customers, but were to go to the U.S. dealer network.Flight Design GmbH employs about 20 workers in Germany and about 100 at its production plant in Ukraine. The company was founded in 1988 and has delivered about 1,500 aircraft.

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