Cessna’s Marketing Strategy Takes Flying to the Mall

Cessna Aircraft Co., the world’s largest manufacturer of light planes, has brought the airport to the shopping mall under a marketing strategy it hopes will cause the public’s interest in flying to soar.

Cessna has opened in Dallas the prototype of what could be as many as 400 aviation stores nationwide.

Called Hangar 10, the store sells aviation-related merchandise, but more importantly offers flying lessons to a public that during the past six years has turned its back on private flight.

“It’s totally new to the industry. It’s a new way of marketing aviation,” said Cessna spokesman Dean Humphrey.

Cessna’s selling concept is simple: The young and affluent are more likely to take a closer look at flying if they don’t have to venture to airports, which some view as hostile to outsiders.

“Pilots sometimes have a tendency to ignore a newcomer,” Humphrey said. “It’s hard to crack that fraternity. Those things led us to feel we should make it easier for the general public to learn about flight training, and where better to do that but in a shopping mall.”

Cessna will not be selling airplanes at the stores, only flight lessons and merchandise. Plane sales will remain the province of aircraft dealers.

Since peaking in the late 1970s, lightplane sales have slumped. Blame is placed on overproduction, high interest rates, rising fuel costs, inflation, recession in foreign countries and embargoes.

The industry as a whole sold 17,811 airplanes in 1978, an all-time high. In 1984, sales plummeted to 2,438.

“I think the industry has been a little lethargic about marketing itself to the general public,” said Richard Schwebel, general manager and vice president of Cessna’s aircraft marketing division.

The cost for flight lessons is $3,000. Students, depending on their motivation and ability, should be ready to take a Federal Aviation Administration pilot’s test in six months to a year, Schwebel said.

Although not disclosing how much Cessna has invested in the Hangar 10 concept, Schwebel said the company in a year or two expects to see “substantial contributions to our bottom line. We are excited about it. We think it will bring an element of growth to our industry.”

The marketing strategy centers on a flight simulator in each Hangar 10 store that includes a computer video that Cessna says gives potential pilots a real feel for the sensation of flying.

In Dallas, would-be pilots are signed up at the store and referred to nine Cessna pilot centers in the metropolitan area. Similar pilot centers already are in place at airports nationwide.

The Hangar 10 stores also will be used as avenues to keep people interested in flying, carrying traditional leather jackets and other flying apparel, pilot supplies such as manuals and headsets, and books like “Yeager” and “The Right Stuff.”

The Hangar 10 strategy involves introduction of flight clubs and credit cards.

Through the flight clubs, Cessna will be able to maintain a data base on its club members. Reminders will be sent to pilots whose license is about to expire or those needing recertification and the like.

With credit cards, club members will be able to rent planes in one city and drop them off in another, purchase fuel and merchandise or even pay for flight lessons.

Schwebel said a second Hangar 10 store will open in Minneapolis later this year. The company hopes to have 25 to 30 in place within the next 12 months, and long-range plans call for about 400 stores, depending on the public’s reaction.

Cessna conducted interviews with people in malls in five cities and found nearly 40 percent expressed interest in becoming a pilot, Schwebel said.

“We maintain there’s a little bit of a pilot in everybody,” he said. “There’s a mystique in flying.”

A mystique Cessna hopes will break the aircraft industry out of its doldrums.