Cirrus celebrates expansion of Paint and Finish Facility

The demand for private aircraft continues, and Cirrus is ramping up their production facilities to meet that demand.

Friday, the company celebrated the opening of their expanded Paint and Finish Facility in Duluth. It’s an additional 16,000 square feet. So the facility is now 86,000 square feet in total.

The increased space will mean 35% more aircraft spray capacity. And they need to hire 50 more people to its campus. That’s on top of the hundreds already added this year.

"These investments result in real outcomes, not just for us, but for the community. We are welcoming new folks into the Cirrus family," Pat Waddick told the group. He’s the President of Innovation and Operations.

Scott Elliott has been with the company for about 18 years. He’s a paint lead. He told us the expansion means a lot to the crew, who take pride in their work.

"The custom jobs typically take around 20 hours in the booth. We’re getting all kinds of types of new colors, with more complexity. It helps with getting the quality that we want," Elliott said.

There are nearly 9000 Cirrus aircraft out there in the world, per Waddick. The pandemic increased demand on personal aviation.

"We saw a lot more people going out to the airport to learn to fly. Maybe some folks that learned to fly some time ago that are now returning. And like I said, we wouldn’t have necessarily expected a global pandemic to spark significant new growth. But it has and we have we have a lot of airplanes to make to to make our customers happy," Waddick shared.

For hiring info, check out: http://www.cirrusaircraft.com/careers