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Recorded at CAPA Latin America Aviation & LCCs Summit, 31-Aug - 1-Sep 2023

Innovation Roadshow - Textron

Juan Escalante joined Textron back in 2007, in his current role as Vice President of Sales, he leads the SkyCourier sales organization worldwide for Textron Aviation. Textron Aviation is the largest general aviation OEM around the world, with 250,000+ aircraft delivered in the last 95 years, flying in 180 countries. Previously with Textron Financial based in Sao Paulo, and then Singapore structuring cross border financing for operators in the region. Specialties: Fleet Acquisitions, Aircraft Financing (crossborder and ECA Financing), Aircraft Sales.

Transcript

Juan Escalante:Well, my name is Juan Escalante. I'm Vice President of Sales for Textron Aviation. I have the privilege of leading the SkyCourier sales team organization worldwide, and I appreciate the opportunity of coming to Querétaro and talking about the success of SkyCourier with you. If we were at a general aviation event, most people would probably be familiar with Cessna, Beechcraft, Textron Aviation, but since we're not, I thought I'll spend the first few minutes talking about the company, what we do, and then presenting the aircraft. Textron has been around for over 100 years, publicly traded company, $14 billion annual revenues, and in this these slides, you probably see some of the brands that belong to Textron that maybe, maybe you recognize, like Cessna, Beechcraft, Bell Helicopters, EZGO golf carts, you know, like Cummins engines, TruSimulators. Here are some numbers to give you a perspective of what we do. Along the years, we built, delivered, and supported over 250,000 turbine aircraft that today most of them are actually currently flying in over 180 countries. This fleet has flown over 150 million flight hours. You know, as you can imagine, you know, we at Textron Aviation, we pride ourselves by offering one of the most versatile and comprehensive aviation portfolios out there, going from, you know, our piston aircraft, the Cessna 172, 182, which where most pilots learn to fly, all the way to business jets, you know, where CEOs fly around the world. and our utility turboprop aircraft like the Cessna Grand Caravan, the King Airs, and now the Cessna SkyCourier as well. To keep that kind of fleet flying, you know, every dot you see on that map, it's either a company-owned service center, an authorized service facility, or a land maintenance service unit that allows us to keep our customers flying at all times. Global part support, again, strategically located around the world, you know, to make sure our customers get the part they need when they need it. And just finalizing with our manufacturing facilities, we build and deliver most of our aircraft in the US, but we do have a manufacturing facility here in Chihuahua, Mexico, where we build some fuselages, some wings, some interiors. The Cessna SkyCourier, which is the aircraft that is very near and dear to my heart, you know, it's— we certified this aircraft with the FAA in March of last year. Delivered our first aircraft to FedEx in May of last year, and since then we've been delivering aircraft every month. You know, despite the current supply chain challenges that everyone is having, it's been one of our most successful launches. And, you know, all the customers and operators that are flying the SkyCourier today are very pleased with the aircraft performance. So Moving on. I mean, we— the SkyCourier comes in 2 versions, a freighter and a passenger version. The freighter, you know, can fit 3 LD3 containers, 4 LD2s, or just loose cargo. The passenger version can carry up to 19 passengers. When we designed this aircraft, we wanted to build something that was simple, robust, reliable. Clean sheet design, but made out of proven systems like G1000 avionics, McCauley props, PT6 engines. The aircraft has manual flight controls, manual brakes, fixed landing gear. I mean, it doesn't really get any simpler than that. Easy to operate, simple to maintain. It was made to fly every day. Our freighter version, one of the nicest features is the large cargo door. It can fit an LD3 container, so 2.2-meter-wide 1.75 meters tall. Most of our operators usually run out of volume before they run out of payload. So this 25 cubic meter cabin volume, it's a very nice feature that really differentiates this aircraft. We worked with Ankra to develop an optional cargo roller system which allows for containerized operations. So this aircraft is a great feeder, you know, when you have containers coming out of an airliner, Slide them through the SkyCourier and off he goes to another location. Our passenger version, it's a truly 19-seater aircraft. Very comfortable cabin, large windows. You know, the aircraft was built and designed to carry 19 passengers with a handbag or a backpack, a carry-on luggage, and also a piece of luggage as well. So great feeder again. Great. Passengers coming out of an airline, getting into the SkyCourier, no passenger, no luggage gets behind. Here are some more pictures of the interior. We also offer an optional overhead bin compartment. On our passenger version, we also kept the large cargo door based on customer feedback. You know, operators really like, you know, the large door. to allow for quickly getting passengers on and off the aircraft as well as loading and unloading luggage. The passenger version comes with an airstair which comes attached to the aircraft. So really no ground support equipment needed when you're operating in smaller airports. And, you know, just to wrap things up, you know, we truly believe that the SkyCourier, it's a great tool for regional airlines to implement a new network strategy. It really enables for low-resource operations, you know, no ground support equipment needed on a 19-passenger aircraft, no need for cabin crew. It allows for quick implementation, you know, new destinations where you have no competition, very little setup cost. You get high reliability with very low operating cost. And really allows airlines to test new markets quickly, right, without very high setup costs there. So just to close it up, I'd like to leave you with a short video of the aircraft so you can see what it looks like. I'll be around if you have any questions. I can also be reached through LinkedIn, and my contact information is also on the app.

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