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Kit deliveries

Ron B.

Well Known Member
A friend of mine just purchased a complete RV-14 kit. He had trouble contacting Van's (probably due to Covid and the wild fires) and always got to speak to someone different. Today he was told he needed to make a deposit to which he had given his VISA last week and thought he had made the deposit. Finally the lady found his VISA number on file but no one had charged his card for the deposit. He found the transaction very confusing and tiring. He made full payment for the emp. kit and it is in stock but he understood that it would be 4 to 6 weeks before it would be crated. Not bashing , just asking if anyone else is experiencing long waits for crating. I could call Van's but it sounds like they are working off their feet answering the phone and don't need to hear from me also. It will be what it is, just curious if my friend misunderstood?
 
Slightly longer, but quite understandable.

I ordered a Fuselage kit a few months ago, and crating/shipping was delayed about 2 weeks based on the original time quoted when I placed the order. Considering all that's going on in the world I didn't think that was too bad, in fact my kit left vans only days after they returned from wildfire evacuations. I had no issues with deposit or payments though - all transactions with Van's have been pretty much like normal (processing credit cards etc), and as it was the slight delay meant I could add a few other parts to my order.
 
A week or two is normal , no question but four to six caught me off guard for crating . It would not have been a surprise to have a four to six week delay for inventory to ship the kit but that isn't the case here as he understood.
Thanks
 
Also delayed

August 31st I was told my fuselage crating would happen in 2-4 weeks. Well a lot has happened at Vans Aircraft in the past 4 weeks so I'm being patient. I'm sure they don't need the additional stress of me pestering them. I trust that they will crate and ship my fuselage when they are able.
 
I ordered my RV8 finish kit about 2 weeks ago, I was told it would be 14 weeks. Normally it would have been 10 weeks so I think that delay is about right considering everything that is going on.
 
Hi Ron. We're sorry for your friend's frustration and experience. And we recognize and appreciate that people are being incredibly patient and understanding during complex times. Feel free to have your friend reach out to me directly at [email protected] if he'd like - I'm glad to talk with him!

First of all: Yes, right now things are running a little later/longer than has been our typical timeline. So, it might be helpful in this context to let people know why things are running a bit late. Some of what you're guessing might be the reason is pretty much spot on. In reality, it's been a combination of things:

1. COVID has meant that our staff is scattered around in some cases, rather than working in the office. This affects all of our office teams to some degree, and probably people are talking to more than one person a little more often than was the case pre-COVID. We try to minimize this, but it's impossible to fully prevent of course. Sorry your friend found it frustrating - we understand.

2. Wildfires completely shut us down for several days in our factory production, crating, parts, orders, shipping/receiving and literally every other team at Van's. Many of our us were displaced from our homes and/or prepared to leave on a moment's notice. One employee's home was unfortunately burned down. Thanksfully that fire risk is in the past at this point and we are no longer directly impacted by the fires.

3. On top of all that, business has actually been exceptionally good this year. Two weeks before the wildfires, we quite literally had our busiest kit sales week in the history of the company. That's a really good problem to have, but it does mean that the line of orders got a bit longer than is typical around here. We have a lot of people working very hard to get things out the door as soon as possible, and we've hired more people at Van's to help make that happen. So, please know that we're working hard to deliver as soon as we possibly can.

So... COVID impacts - plus a significantly busy kit sales period and the related backlog of orders, and on top of that the untimely and severely impacting wildfires - have certainly affected us. That's why things are running a bit longer right now. No excuses, of course, but it certainly has also had some amount of impact on customer interactions with us over the past little while.

We're working hard and we'll definitely do the very best we can to provide great service and make people happy. The RV-14 your friend is ordering is an amazing airplane (I know this personally, since I got to do a bunch of incredibly fun test flying in the airplane with our new higher-horsepower engine configuration a few weeks ago - just wow!). While the current crating workload and delays are frustrating for us all, we want you to know that the people who work on that team are knocking it out of the park in their work to get kits shipped, and in the end it's certainly worth the wait. :)

greg
 
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Thanks for the explanation Greg , what we thought. Just one correction , he never was frustrated and it was I that was curious on the crating delays.
 
A little confusion

Yes,

I just finished with a couple of mixed up email threads with Van's.
My empennage order was placed over five weeks ago and due to COVID and Oregon fires, etc things have been "interesting".

With a bit of patience on both sides I have finally been given "ASAP" scheduling.

So, just to let ya'll know it will be about six weeks to get a ship date.

It's all good!

Andrew
 
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