Arkansas News Bureau

LITTLE ROCK — Dassault Falcon announced today it will lay off 72 workers at its Little Rock facility, a sign of the continuing struggles of Arkansas’ aviation industry.

Dassault, which finishes the interiors of corporate jets and paints exteriors at its Little Rock plant, laid off 153 workers in June.
Wichita-based Hawker Beechcraft Corp., a competitor which also operates a facility in Little Rock, announced layoffs in August and in May.

John Rosanvallon, president and CEO of Dassault, said Monday the company’s latest round of layoffs reflected the difficult economic times.

“While the global economy has shown some promise recently, the market for business jets remains challenged,” Rosanvallon said in a news release. “The number of workers affected by this reduction, unfortunately, is in line with our order cancellations. We used utmost care in our selection to ensure their loss would not impact the current Falcon delivery schedule.”

Along with the 72 layoffs, Rosanvallon said additional workers would be taking advantage of an “early out” program.

About 2,000 people work at Dassault’s Little Rock plant.

In August, Hawker Beechcraft announced plans to layoff 300 employees nationwide, though the company did not disclose how many of those jobs were in Little Rock.

That announcement occurred the same day Hawker and Dassault hosted a forum where Gov. Mike Beebe and others spoke about the importance of aviation jobs to Arkansas’ economy.

Hawker also announced 150 layoffs in June, but also did not say how many were at its Little Rock facility.