New Solvency Plan For Flight Design Leading To Continued Production And Support Of Their Aircraft

When the sport pilot regulations were activated in 2004, one of the earliest aircraft to be brought in from the European market to fill the need for aircraft meeting the new light sport definition was a company out of Germany called Flight Design. Over the last several months we’ve been hearing about financial problems with the company, and here’s an update about what’s going on.

In a press release issued by Flight Design last month, it’s reported the Lindig group will take over Flight Design under an insolvency plan procedure.

Aero Jones in an asset-only purchase takes ownership of the C4 project and CT business, where the supply of spare parts and support for all models is ensured.

Knut Rebholz, receiver of Flight Design will, according to the agreement of the parties, create an insolvency plan and will prepare a parallel asset deal with Aero Jones. The insolvency plan will be then submitted to the court and the creditors. The termination of the insolvency proceedings is scheduled for no later this year.

“The creditors, with their decision for the new investors, have paved the way for a continuation of the core business as well as the production and support of established aircraft and completion of new developments,” says receiver Knut Rebholz.

Precondition for the successful restructuring was that the receiver, Rebholz, was able to continue the business operations of the company, and to continue the necessary licenses and regulatory approvals.

An important step was to agree with customers on a way to finance their orders, which already existed before the insolvency. “The negotiations for this were, among other reasons, very complex, because the customers of Flight Design are from all over the world and are not familiar with the German Insolvency Code” says Rebholz.

According to the press release, the customers whose aircraft orders were not met at the time of opening of the insolvency proceedings may confirm their orders to the conditions offered by the insolvency administrator until the end of September this year.

According to flight design, the financial difficulties occurred after an international customer defaulted on a bill worth over 7 figures. This lead the company into a liquidity squeeze.

Flight design has been a key player in sport aviation, and we at ANN hope these actions will lead to the continued successful operation of this company.

(Images from file)

FMI: www.flightdesignusa.com/