Es gibt im Prinzip zwei Gründe:
Die Transportkosten haben sich fast verdoppelt und die Balsapreise sind ebenfalls gestiegen und das Balsa muss erst von Ecuador nach China transportiert werden.
Hier der komplette Text:
I want to take a minute and address the concerns over today's price increase. I understand everyone's frustration with this, but in order to keep our doors open this had to be done. We've put this off for as long as we possibly could, and we have dreaded this day. Ben Fisher, my wife Melissa, Tim Hanstine along with pretty much every other U.S. based ARF company owner have been in discussion about this for some time. The recent container shipping nightmare is the straw that broke the camel's back. Over night our container shipping cost went from $8000.00 USD to $14,000.00! Every single component that goes into the production of our aircraft, including labor has gone up considerably in the past 18 months. Balsa is at an all time premium, with the wind turbine industry buying out all of the balsa from most balsa plantations in Ecuador, driving up the price for us and making it very difficult for us to even get enough for production. Of course the balsa must be shipped to our factory in China on a container, which as I mentioned before is ridiculously expensive. This is not just an EF issue, this affects all of us in this industry and you will see all the other companies increase their prices in the coming weeks. To those that think this "big corporation" (we have exactly 4 people working at the EF home office in Atlanta) is somehow trying to take advantage of our customers, I can assure you that is far from the situation. We are simply trying to keep our doors open, our warehouse rent paid, our employees paid and hopefully be able to put aside a little money for retirement. There have been several times when we had to forgo our paychecks in order to make sure our employees got paid. This is a very tough industry to make a living in and quite honestly, as much as I love it, if I knew back when I started Extreme Flight in 2002 how difficult it would be I would have finished the Telecommunications program at Devry I was enrolled in and probably be making really good money right now. After giving my heart and soul to this business for 19 years, it is depressing to think that I could go manage a McDonalds, make more money, work half the hours and have a great benefit package to boot. Just like all of you, everything in our world has gone up considerably and we all struggle daily to deal with it. Extreme Flight is a labor of love and it brings me great joy to work with some great people doing something that I love. I'm still just as giddy as ever when a new design comes together and we're out at the field putting the first flights on it. But being responsible for other's well being is stressful and something I don't take lightly, and in order to keep things moving forward this had to be done. Thank you for taking the time to read this and I hope you understand the reasoning behind this action.
Chris Hinson Extreme Flight