16 December 2024
German aircraft maker Flight Design has run out of cash and filed for insolvency.
The managing director of Flight Design filed for insolvency in court with outstanding debts in the ‘mid-six-figure’ range.
The court appointed lawyer Marcello Di Stefano, a partner in specialist insolvency company Diligens, as provisional insolvency administrator.
Mr Di Stefano said, “The company’s order situation is good and the products have a very good reputation on the international market, and the outstanding debts are manageable.”
One of the first tasks is enabling the financing of business operations, said Mr Di Stefano.
“This would make it possible to maintain the Flight Design Group with its EASA Design and Production Organizations and the F-Series and CT-Series aircraft and to finalize the existing orders and hand over the aircraft to the customers.”
According to Flight Design’s management, an international customer has not yet paid undisputed claims in the mid-six-figure range and another payment in the mid-six-figure range was also delayed. The management looked for alternative financing channels and investors. However, the main shareholder could not agree to a short-term offer from an investor.
A similar situation occurred in 2017 when the current main shareholder, Lift Air, took over ownership of the company.
Flight Design is based at Kindl airfield in Hörselberg-Hainich and has production sites in Sumperk, Czech Republic, and Kherson, Ukraine. The invasion of Ukraine meant Flight Design had to relocate its main manufacturing base to Sumperk, which affected production.
The company says it has 10 employees working in Germany, 70 in the Czech Republic and 20 in Ukraine. Since the company was founded in 1988 it has delivered more than 2,000 aircraft.
