Third Major Airframer Skips 2024 NBAA-BACE The 2024 NBAA-BACE due to be held in Las Vegas, Nevada will open its doors next month (October 22-24) with one less major exhibitor. In a stunning revelation, Textron Aviation has pulled out from participating in this year's event. It is also ironic that Textron hosted the pre-NBAA-BACE media briefing in Wichita and will not be taking part in the actual show itself. This will be three major aircraft manufacturers that have decided to skip the 2024 event. Gulfstream and Dassault Falcon both announced earlier in the year that they will be not attending.
There was no concrete reason given as to why the company has chosen to sit-out this years show. They suggested that they look "forward to future opportunities to showcase our [their] industry-leading products." However, there has been a large scale strike that the company is going through though we are not certain if that is the reason from them missing the show. The strike at Textron Aviation started on Monday involving 5,000 members of the International Association of Machinists (IAM) Local Lodge 774 District 70. The strike will likely hit the company's delivery forecast as well as cost them money. At this stage as many as 15 deliveries could be affected.
Each of the aforementioned airframers reasons for missing the NBAA-BACE are different. For Gulfstream they stated that they are concentrating more on smaller and regional shows rather than the big conglomerate type air shows. It appears Dassault Falcon maybe looking at attending every-other-year but Textron has not provided a reason for their absence. In analysis many of the OEMs over the years have an evolving and even cyclical approach to their types of attendance at shows like NBAA-BACE. For example... a company may opt to have just a static display and a corresponding chalet or customer support booth. While another year they may go all out with an interior spread on the convention floor and not much presence on the static display. For more information: Textron Aviation One Cessna Blvd, Wichita, KS www.txtav.com ***
