Japan’s first home grown commercial passenger aircraft for more than 50 years will be further delayed and will not enter service until at least mid-2018.
Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp has pushed back delivery of its first planes by ‘approximately one year’ due to various unspecified ‘issues’ the company said in a statement.
"Whilst this latest delay is very disappointing, we remain confident of the benefits the MRJ will bring to the ANA fleet," said launch customer All Nippon Airways.
This is the fourth delay for the project.
Mitsubishi has more than 400 orders for the MRJ regional jet, which seats 92 passengers and has a list price of $47.3 million.
US regional carrier SkyWest is the biggest customer with 100 MRJ jets, and its orders ‘remain unchanged, and are dependent on flying contracts, scope and aircraft availability.’
The MRJ only began test flights last month and competes with rival plane makers Embraer of Brazil and Canada’s Bombardier in the regional jet market.
