In mid-April, Midcoast Aviation senior v-p of green completions Rodger Renaud described business at the East Cahokia, Ill.-based maintenance and operations facility as “certainly better now than [at] this time last year.” Slightly more than a month later, on May 26, the company announced the layoff of 80 employees. According to Midcoast marketing and communications director Ann Hein, the move affected workers “pretty much across the board,” and no one area–maintenance, completion, refurbishment–was hit any harder than another. Midcoast, part of General Dynamics-owned Jet Aviation, also has a substantial revenue stream from its cabin refurbishment and completion business. In addition to cabin refurbishment of aircraft of all types, the company has a long-term agreement with Bombardier to provide highly personalized green completion work on the Global 5000, Global Express XRS and Challenger 605, as well as standard green completion of Challenger 850s. Renaud said that particular business segment remains booked out to December next year. Hein blamed the job cuts on the struggling global economy. Three years ago Midcoast expanded operations and its workforce, adding a 119,000-sq-ft $11 million hangar and 100 more employees. The company now employs approximately 1,100 workers. Hein did not comment on how the recent reduction in force might affect current operations.