Will Handle Citations

Cessna Aircraft Company's new Orlando, Florida, Citation Service Center is open for business. Cessna received the new Orlando Citation Service Center's certificate of occupancy from the city of Orlando on Thursday and workers began an around-the-clock move on Friday evening. The new Orlando Citation Service Center began serving customers on Monday morning.

Located on the west side of the Orlando International Airport, the new Orlando Citation Service Center is 155,000 square feet. It replaces the original 47,275 square foot facility, which has served the southeast United States since 1983. The new Orlando Citation Service Center operates 24 hours a day. It is designed to accommodate all Citation models with a full range of inspections, maintenance, repair, overhaul and other services. It includes 123,000 square feet of hangar space, an expanded aircraft ramp with underground refueling facilities, environmental control systems throughout the facility, specially equipped wash bays, customer courtesy offices, and a fully equipped classroom for advanced employee training.

Cessna has already made plans to expand the new Orlando Service Center to nearly 200,000 square feet. The expansion is expected to be complete in October 2004, and will add a humidity-controlled paint room and aircraft detailing area.

"We're dedicated to providing customers with the best service in the industry. This new building is just one of the many indicators of our customer commitment," said Jim Morgan, Cessna's vice president of service facilities. "As the Citation fleet grows, it's important that customers have as much flexibility as possible when scheduling their aircraft for maintenance. The new Orlando Service Center triples the amount of space we had at the previous facility, so we'll be able to work on more airplanes at the same time, and get customers back in the air sooner."

For approximately six months, the Orlando Citation Service Center will be Cessna's largest Citation Service Center. But it will be outsized toward the end of this year, when Cessna opens its new 447,259 square foot facility (above) in Wichita (KS). Once open, the Wichita Citation Service Center will be the largest general aviation maintenance facility in the world.

Cessna now has ten company owned Citation Service Centers and 28 authorized Citation Service Centers. The facilities are state-of-the-art and capable of meeting all inspection, maintenance and service requirements for the Citation fleet, which exceeds 4,100 airplanes.

FMI: www.cessna.com