Daher: Expansion of Kodiak assembly in Florida will not affect Sandpoint operations

By Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

The Daher Group announced Jan. 16 that it has secured a long-term lease agreement for its aerostructures facility at Whithan Field in Stuart, Fla., where it will establish a final assembly line for its TBM and Kodiak turboprop-powered planes. 

The French-based company employs 13,000 workers worldwide, including more than 260 in Sandpoint, as well as contractors, where it also operates a final assembly plant for Kodiaks at the Sandpoint Airport.

“Daher’s intention to create a final assembly line at the Stuart facility in Florida (Witham Field) is to provide additional

An overall view of the Sandpoint final assembly facility with the parallel final assembly lines. Photo courtesy of Daher.

capacity for the build-up of the TBM and Kodiak aircraft families,” Daher Vice President of Communications Jeffrey Lenorovitz told the Reader in an email. “It does not affect the activity at Sandpoint.”

According to the Jan. 16 news release, Daher employs more than 1,200 workers in North America and reported total revenue of $1.7 billion in 2023 — 35% of that coming from its North American operations.

“The demand for these aircraft continues very strong — with sales typically booked up for at least the year to come (which once again is the situation, as the orderbook is solid through 2025 and into 2026),” Lenorovitz wrote. “This underscores the reasoning to create additional capacity to assemble these airplanes at Witham Field — which is a very large industrial facility (440,000 square feet of production and support activities across a 44-acre site).”

As of spring 2024, a total of 330 Kodiak 100s and Kodiak 900s have been delivered to owners and operators around the world.

The expansion in Florida follows an increase in production at the Sandpoint site, where in April 2024 the company announced plans to ramp up production capacity for the Kodiak 100 and 900 models with the addition of a second final assembly line. That came after a $2.7 million investment in a 9,000-square-foot paint facility in Sandpoint in 2023. 

Daher acquired the Kodiak product line in 2019, when it purchased Quest Aircraft — a Sandpoint-based aircraft company that had been acquired by Japanese firm Setouchi Holdings in 2015. 

Since then, Daher has “significantly increased the aircraft’s sales while also enhancing the production and final assembly capabilities at Sandpoint as part of the company’s long-term commitment,” Lenorovitz wrote.