CIRRUS CEO DALE KLAPMEIER SPOKE WITH RICH KARLGAARD, OUR EDITOR-AT-LARGE
AND GLOBAL FUTURIST. THIS INTERVIEW HAS BEEN EDITED AND CONDENSED.
FOR THE EXTENDED CONVERSATION, VISIT FORBES.COM/SITES/RICHKARLGAARD.Cirrus airplanes come with a
parachute built into the craft’s body,
which makes flying considerably
safer. How’d you think of that?
My brother Alan was in a midair
collision back in 1985. He lost four
feet of the wing but was able to
land the airplane, barely. He got
out of the airplane and said, “We
can do better.” This started the
search for the parachute.
How many parachute saves have
there been in Cirruses?
Since 1999, 146. That’s a lot
of lives. I won’t say all of them
wouldn’t be here without it, but the
parachute is a good solution when
there’s a problem.
Early on, Cirrus had to fight the
image that only wimps would pull
the parachute handle if they got in
trouble.
We’re a lifestyle company, not an
aviation company. That means we
make our planes safe and teach
customers how to safely fly them.
Happy customers come back.
How did Cirrus survive the Great
Recession, when its business fell by
almost two-thirds?
September 2008 was our best
delivery month outside of a
December. But by October 2008,
we couldn’t give an airplane away.
It stopped that fast. It was several
years of pure hell.During all that, you’re trying
to complete the Vision Jet,
the world’s first single-
engine personal jet.
We knew the Vision Jet was
the future of Cirrus. We
could not let that die, but
we were forced to slow the
project down to what I call “the
speed of cash.” Development got
pretty slow.
And then you ended up selling Cirrus
to China’s CAIGA in 2011. What’s that
been like?
It’s been both frustrating and
exciting. A business issue that
seems very simple can come off
the rails quickly. Then again, it’s
been fantastic for the company
and the customer to have that
influx of cash. It let us finish the
Vision Jet.
The Vision Jet sure is strange-
looking.
It looks different because we
designed from the inside out, not
for the professional pilot but for the
amateur owner flying the airplane
with his or her family. It’s simple to
fly. Every seat is comfortable and
has a spectacular view.
Your cofounder brother Alan left
Cirrus in 2009. Now he runs One
Aviation. Are you two competitors?
Oh, sure we are. But at the same
time, One Aviation’s six-seat
Eclipse 550 costs $3.5 million, and
we cost $2 million. We have a very
big base of customers we’re trying
to move up, and they don’t.
Do you and Alan get along?
We are competitors. Let’s leave it
at that.
Uber and others talk about drones as
air taxis. Seriously?
Traditional aviation and drones
will converge. There
is no question about that. They’ll
be expensive at first. Battery
technology has a long way to go.
But it will happen. We will see
drones flying people across cities.Flight’s Next Ace
Cirrus CEO Dale Klapmeier on creating a one-engine jet, drone taxis
and brotherly rivalry at 20,000 feet.
FORBES ASIA
10 QUESTIONS
FLY THE
SKINNY SKIES
For all the attention
Boeing’s Dreamliner and
Airbus’ A380 get, smaller
planes are increasingly
the big boppers of the
airline business. The share
of “wide-bodies”—planes
with two aisles and seven
or more seats across—
among the global fleet has
fallen from 32% in 1996
to just 11% today. Further
loss of altitude is ahead:
Boeing projects that 72%
of new aircraft delivered
over the next 20 years
will be single-aisle jets—a
trend fueled by growth in
low-cost, frills-free airlines,
particularly in Asia.
PROJECTED
DELIVERIES,
2017–36
NUMBER
VA LU E
REGIONAL JETS
2,370
$110 BILLION
SINGLE-AISLE
29,530
$3.2 TRILLION
SMALL WIDE-BODY
5,050
$1.3 TRILLION
MEDIUM/LARGE
WIDE-BODY
3,160
$1.2 TRILLION
FREIGHTERS
920
$260 BILLION
SOURCE: BOEING.BY THE
NUMBERSAUGUST 2017 FORBES ASIA | 23