According to Bass, Piper is selling two to three planes each week (down from six to seven a week a year ago), the company continues to have positive cash flow,
Unless they are all Meridians (which they obviously are not, otherwise the world would be full of them) it is obvious that what is keeping piper afloat is
“One of the things people forget when they talk about Piper – and one of the reasons we have such staying power – is the fact that Piper in its history has built over 144,000 aircraft. Nearly 90,000 of those aircraft are still flying somewhere in the world. Those aircraft all need spare parts.
Piper will go on for ever, because a Type Certificate owner can manufacture parts out of any old material which meets the spec and which comes with a CofC for the bulk quantity purchased, and they generate the 8130-3 or EASA-1 forms from fresh air, multiplying their cost 10x to 100x (or even more for very small parts) to arrive at the selling price.
Same with Mooney.
And Socata. Even if their new owner DAHER shut them down, the spare parts operation would still be worth many millions. The TBM however keeps going.
The margins in making planes are not that great, if they are hand-built, which they all are.