The first Cessna Longitude to arrive South Africa has finally been delivered, arriving from the Wichita factory in late September. Interestingly, the South African CAA has made it so difficult, time consuming and expensive to register the aircraft here that it is registered in San Marino – hence the T7-KFL registration.
The Longitude is Cessna’s parent company Textron Aviation’s largest jet. It is aimed squarely at the competitive super-midsize bizjet market and has raised the bar in terms of performance and passenger appeal. As at October 2023, Cessna has delivered 100 Longitudes.
It is noteworthy that T7-KFL’s South African owner upgraded from a Sovereign+ and as a long time Textron customer he was accorded the honour of having the 100th Longitude off the production line.
Development
The Longitude is a natural progression of the Cessna Latitude, which we reviewed about ten years ago when we got to sample it on a sales demo tour to Southern Africa.
The Longitude shares the same cabin profile as the Latitude and Sovereign but is otherwise in all respects a big step up. The cabin is more than a metre longer than the Latitude’s and the aircraft is 3.4 metres longer in overall length. Its distinguishing feature is a full T-tail – rather than the Latitudes (and Sovereign’s) cruciform tail.
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