It's Not Looking Good For Personal Jet Developer

Amid reports that employees are "voluntarily" leaving Safire Aircraft Company after the company admitted that it can't pay them (at the moment); ANN has learned that the foreign financing package first disclosed last week in an exclusive conversation with Safire President and CEO Camilo Salomon, has hit some snags.

Just last Friday, we reported that Salomon claimed that reports of payroll and associated problems had been "brought current," and that a very recent capital infusion should have given them sufficient cash to see the Safire through to it's first flight later this year. Solomon explained that the claimed windfall was not one that had been disclosed previously, and that the deal was the culmination of three months of negotiations.

He refused to disclose much detail at that point, only revealing that the investment capital was provided by a private equity group from Switzerland. Salomon did note that he did not expect the recent hiccup to add much to the timeline for the Safire's upcoming first flight, allowing that, "it might push it back a week or two."

That was then... but reports that came in late Monday and early Tuesday indicated that payroll was NOT being brought current with all affected parties, and that the money expected from the Swiss concern may have fallen through.

"It hasn't fallen through... it's just been delayed," claims Salomon,  in a Tuesday afternoon conversation with ANN. Salomon did admit, though, that employees were informed that they could not be paid until the financing came through but that he refused to resort to actual layoffs. "Those that want to stay until we get financing can do so, and those that can't, can do what they need to do.... but we haven't laid anyone off."

It is Salomon's contention that the current financing program will eventually come through and even noted that he had a closing date of June 17th on the schedule. "Yes, we're having a difficult time, but we'll get out of it, I'm sure of it" Salomon added.

In the meantime, though, Safire's boss insists that progress is still being made on the prototype jet and that construction continues unabated. Industry scuttlebutt is mixed. While the Safire program was one of the few that looked like it was making slow progress, it lagged badly behind the Eclipse 500 and Cessna Mustang programs. With the Adam 700 encountering increasing difficulty (most of it reportedly due to highly optimistic and allegedly unrealistic projections), Eclipse and Mustang may have the multi-engine personal jet market to themselves (with Diamond the only company offering a single engine jet, period) until something or somebody new comes along.

The Company's six place twin-turbofan-powered Safire Jet, priced at $1.395 million, was (optimistically) scheduled to make its first flight later this year, with deliveries beginning in 2006. We'll keep you updated as this story develops...

FMI: www.safireaircraft.com