Cirrus Design Corp. opened its first sales center in Greece on Friday.
The center, in Athens, will serve as a base of operations for sales staff, who will travel around the country offering demonstrations of Cirrus' aircraft.
"As the designated Cirrus Design sales and service provider for the region, our main goal at Cirrus Greece will be to drive the sales growth and market representation of the product line and inspire the development and improvement of the Greek general aviation market," Roberto Alchanatis, managing director of the new sales center, said in a statement.
"With Cirrus' excellent quality aircraft and an offering of innovative ownership structures, we hope to make general aviation more accessible and affordable to Greek pilots," he said.
International sales have been a growing part of Cirrus' business. Foreign customers now account for35 percent to 40 percent of the company's sales. In 2005, just 15 percent of Cirrus' sales were to out-of-country buyers.
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Besides opening 27 sales and service centers around the world, Cirrus also has established reassembly facilities in southern England and eastern Australia.
Cirrus continues to manufacture all its aircraft in Duluth, but it removes the wings and tails of planes it ships abroad via specially designed shipping containers. The containers are equipped with monitors designed to alert technicians to any rough handling that could have damaged the integrity of an aircraft in transit.
At the reassembly centers, the airplanes are pieced back together. The aircraft are then tested and recertified as air-worthy.
The first reassembly facility opened in England in 2005. Before that, delivery of planes to European customers required a trans-Atlantic flight. That usually meant pulling the rear seat out of a plane, replacing it with an extra fuel tank and hiring a pilot to deliver the craft. The airplanes arrived, but often after logging 30 to 40 hours of rigorous flight on the way.
Today, European customers receive airplanes in showroom condition.
