Quest lays off 25 employees

SANDPOINT — In an effort to “rightsize” the company, Quest Aircraft recently laid off 25 employees at its Sandpoint headquarters, according to CEO Paul Schaller.

The company, which manufactures the popular Kodiak airplane, has for years been a shining example of the area’s strong manufacturing base, bringing in approximately 200 new employees over the past 20 months.

The workers were hired, at least in part, to enable a four-plane-per-month production schedule, which Schaller planned on implementing by November. However, thanks to a struggling economy, Schaller said production will be kept at three planes per month for the foreseeable future, making a portion of the company’s 330 employees unnecessary.

“The market for the Kodiak, while still strong, is nonetheless impacted by the economy, and we need to be able to rightsize the company to stay at our seven-day build cycle time,” Schaller said.

“We had already staffed up in order to go to the four-a-month rate in November and we’re at a point where we had to make a decision about continuing that process or not. The backlog and the customer interest, while strong, is not as strong as it needs to be in order to go to that next plateau.”

Schaller would like to rehire employees if the market picks up, but said the cuts are  permanent.

“This is not a ‘come back in 30 days’ type of thing,” he said. “Until the market shows it can come back, this is a permanent thing.”

Despite the slowdown, Schaller said Quest has an approximately two-year backlog of orders for the Kodiak.