ORLANDO — Hawker Beechcraft executives and personnel showed up at the first press conference of the day at the world’s largest business jet show dressed in military flight suits.
The aviation industry is in a “battle situation. And it could be a long conflict,” the company’s CEO Bill Boisture said.
“We’re on a mission,” Boisture said. “Our mission is to prevail against unprecedented market forces; our mission today is to counter attack.”
Boisture doesn’t expect the market to rebound until 2012 or 2013.
But the company’s optimism and toughness is “best expressed by saying, ‘We are surrounded and tackling on all fronts…. We have plenty of ammo.”
That ammunition includes its skilled work force, business aviation product lines, its global support and its military trainer business, officials said.
