Cessna Shuts Toledo Citation Service Center

Jan 30, 2009
By Jim Swickard



Cessna will close its Toledo, Ohio, Citation Service Center due to the decline in overall business aviation operations with an accompanying increase in the interval between scheduled maintenance actions, Cessna spokesman Doug Oliver told the Toledo Blade newspaper yesterday.

"Due to the global economic meltdown, people are flying their jets less," Oliver told the Blade. "We've got a slowdown in business jet usage, which translates to a slowdown in maintenance requirements, and that has resulted in a reduced workload there." All 67 employees at the service center will be affected. Cessna had nine Citation Service Centers including Toledo.

Aviation Research Group/U.S. (ARG/US) reports that IFR operations during December 2009 compared to the same month in 2008, declined 22.1 percent for small cabin jets and 19.9 percent for midsize cabin jets.

FlightSafety International, Inc., operates a Citation Learning Center adjacent to the service center, but FSI spokesman Steve Phillips told AviationWeek.com that operations are continuing, and that there is no direct connection between Cessna's maintenance business and FSI's training activities. While maintenance is usually scheduled based on flight hours or operating cycles, recurrent training is usually regularly scheduled at six-month or annual intervals.

Over 75,000 pilots, technicians and other aviation professionals train at FlightSafety facilities each year. The company designs and manufactures full flight simulators for civil and military aircraft programs and operates the world's largest fleet of full flight simulators at 40 training locations.

Image credit: Cessna