Who Owns Cessna?

Clyde Cessna, a Kansas farmer turned aircraft builder, founded the Cessna Aircraft Company in Wichita in 1927 after earlier ventures with Travel Air. The company survived the Depression by shifting to small, affordable cabin monoplanes, and boomed after World War II as returning pilots filled flight schools.

The Cessna 172 Skyhawk, introduced in 1956, became the most-produced aircraft in history with more than 44,000 built. Cessna dominated the light-aircraft market through the 1960s and 1970s, producing a range spanning trainers, utility haulers, and agricultural aircraft.

The 1972 launch of the first Citation business jet opened the franchise that now defines the brand: the Citation family became the world's bestselling line of business jets. General aviation's 1980s collapse halted piston production entirely from 1986 until Textron restarted it in the 1990s.

Textron acquired Cessna in 1992, and consolidated it with Beechcraft and Hawker under the Textron Aviation umbrella in 2014. The modern product strategy mixes clean-sheet designs like the SkyCourier utility turboprop with generational updates to proven lines, including the Citation Ascend and Citation CJ3 Gen2 certified in the mid-2020s.