When Van’s filed for Chapter 11 protection in early December, many customers had open orders and deposits on various Van’s airframe kits and third-party items including engines, propellers, avionics kits, and power-plant kits. Several weeks ago, Van’s sent notice to customers with deposits on aircraft kits stating that these orders contained terms, conditions, and pricing that Van’s could not perform and that these orders needed to be modified or cancelled. The deadline to modify or reject those orders is January 31, 2024. Since that notice, the rate of customer reorders has been high.
Over the past several weeks, Van’s has been working through open customer orders and related deposits on hundreds of third-party items. In the next few days, They will begin sending official notices to customers with these open orders, informing them of the price changes that Van’s is making on each order. The official notice each customer receives will contain a link to a web portal where each customer can review their specific price increase. Customers who receive these notices will be given 14 days to decide whether to accept or reject these modified orders.
Van’s acknowledges that many customers with orders for Van’s airframe kits who are facing the January 31 deadline also have open orders for third-party items. Some of those customers have been waiting to see what their cost increases will be on these third-party items before deciding whether to modify or reject their airframe kit orders. If a customer receives an official notice to modify or reject a third-party item order and has not yet decided to modify or reject the airframe kit order, the deadline to modify or reject their airframe kit order is extended to the same date by which you must decide to modify or reject the third-party item order.
Below is a summary of the approximate price increase by major group type on third-party components. If a customer accepts the modified offer, Van’s will apply 100% of your prior deposit(s) toward the same product(s) on your revised order.
Hartzell propellers: 3% increase to the original order price. (Due to special accommodations made by Hartzell, Van’s was able to keep this increase to a minimum.)
Sensenich propellers: 6% increase to the original order price.
MT propellers: 6% increase to the original order price.
RV-12/12iS Avionics Kits: 6% increase to the original order price.
RV-12/12iS Powerplant Kits: 6% increase to the original order price.
Lycoming: either a 12% increase to the original order price, or 2024 pricing, whichever is lower.
In a statement Van’s claim to understand these price increases create hardship for customers. However, without taking these steps and making these price changes, there simply is not a feasible path forward for Van’s Aircraft. Increasing these prices allows them to remain in business to provide parts, kits, and support for the thousands of builders and owners of Van’s products, and to be around to support builders for years to come.
