Duncan Aviation to lay off workers at its facilities across the United States

Duncan Aviation, based in Lincoln, Nebraska, the United States, has announced that it will lay off workers across the United States in view of the fall in use of business aircraft amidst the global economic recession.

The family-owned Duncan Aviation – which is engaged in customising and refurbishing private aircraft as well as providing technical advice for all major makes and models of business aircraft – has 2,216 employees at 23 locations around the United States.

According to a statement from Duncan Aviation, the plants at Lincoln, Nebraska, with 1,377 employees, and at Battle Creek, Michigan, with 703 employees, are the company’s biggest plants.

While the plants at Lincoln and Battle Creek carry out aircraft-remodelling, the other 21 sites of Duncan Aviation have “a more limited list of services” which include engine maintenance and avionics, the company said.

Duncan Aviation started cutting hours for some workers and pay for some others in January 2009, a report in the Battle Creek Enquirer newspaper said, because of reduced flights of private aircraft, cuts in orders for new planes as well as decreased spending by businesses. This was done, the company had explained, in order to avoid more stringent steps for cutting costs.

Duncan Aviation said it had also put on hold plans to build a new facility in Provo, Utah, the United States.

“With the present economy and the media and political grandstanding against private aviation,” the statement on Duncan Aviation’s website read, “business conditions in our industry have continued to erode and we have advised our employees that we are in the process of developing a reduction in work force plan.”

In a press release issued in January 2009, Aaron Hilkemann, president of Duncan Aviation, had said that, “in the light of reduced flight hours, corporate flight department closings, and reduced discretionary spending by businesses, the company needs to respond quickly with reductions in prices, wages and hours to remain strong and competitive.”