Textron secures order for 40 Cessna Skyhawks

Textron Aviation has signed an agreement with ATP Flight School for the purchase of 40 Cessna Skyhawk aircraft to be delivered in 2025. The piston aircraft will add to ATP's existing fleet of nearly 200 Skyhawks, positioned across 82 training centres nationwide.

This is the second fleet purchase of Cessna Skyhawks for ATP's Airline Career Pilot Programme in less than a year, as the flight school scales to train 20,000 airline pilots by 2030. In October 2022, ATP and Textron Aviation agreed to the purchase of 55 Cessna Skyhawks, with deliveries starting in the third quarter of 2023.

“The Cessna Skyhawk has been the standard in aircraft training for over six decades,” said Chris Crow, Vice President, Textron Aviation Piston Sales. “We are thrilled to see these aircraft continue to inspire the next generation of professional pilots through this agreement with ATP Flight School.”

“With 95 Skyhawks on order, ATP is committed to providing students with unparalleled access to a modern and advanced fleet, so they can achieve their airline career goals on the fastest timeline possible,” said Michael Arnold, Vice President of Marketing, ATP Flight School. “ATP's nationwide fleet operates over a half-million flight hours annually, with the oversight and support from ATP's safety, maintenance and flight operations quality assurance teams. The Skyhawk's proven dispatch reliability and effectiveness as a trainer is crucial in meeting this mission and delivering industry-leading training.”

The stable flight characteristics, advanced avionics and demonstrated dispatch reliability of the Skyhawk have made it a dependable training platform for the flight school for over three decades. The new airplanes will be used by students to put them in the pilot's seat of the most popular training aircraft in the industry.

Since the aircraft first took to the skies, more than 45,000 Skyhawks have been delivered to customers worldwide.