North Saanich-based Viking Air has brought in an aviation industry veteran as the company looks ahead to what could be a very busy year of breaking down new barriers.
Richard Libby, who has spent more than 20 years in the business, most recently as director of sales for the asset management group at Bombardier Aerospace, has been appointed director of aircraft sales and will be responsible for managing global sales efforts for Viking’s Twin Otter Series 400 aircraft.
“Richard has a tremendous amount of turbo-prop experience with de Havilland and Bombardier,” said Viking chief executive Dave Curtis. “He’s worked in some pretty interesting parts of our globe. As we start really working all our different opportunities around the world, he brings some more horsepower. We’re excited about that.”
Libby takes over the role from Robert Mauracher, who helped establish the Twin Otter as the fastest selling turbo-prop in the 19-passenger category. Mauracher has tendered his resignation from Viking in order to pursue other opportunities in commercial aviation.
Curtis said this is the first such announcement as Viking intends to expand its executive team this year to match its expanding market around the world.
“We are stabilizing our production now. We’re at one every 10 days, which is fantastic. It gives us a rate of completing 24 airplanes a year,” Curtis said. “We’re at the point of stabilizing our production program against market demand.”
Demand has been fairly strong since Viking brought the Twin Otter back into production in 2009, after acquiring the rights to manufacture the de Havilland aircraft.
It delivered its first plane in 2010. The Twin Otter first hit the skies in 1965, but production was discontinued in 1988.
Viking, which employs 400 people in Victoria with another 150 in Calgary, has so far delivered more than 30 aircraft to 16 different countries and orders are currently backlogged to the middle of 2015.
“The happy zone is a 20-22 month range [from order to delivery],” said Curtis. “We’re now out making sure we keep that sales pipe full and looking for other opportunities to grow it.”
That means Curtis and Libby will be on the road a lot.
Viking is targeting markets in Brazil, Russia, India and China this year.
“The Twin Otter was the largest selling 19-passenger utility airplane ever and only a handful were sold to that region. If you think about areas that lack infrastructure — where this airplane loves to operate — it’s a huge opportunity for us.”
That starts next week as Libby and Curtis represent Viking at the Paris Air Show before hitting stops around the world.
