JAPAN: Mitsubishi Regional Jet For Delivery Starting Mid 2020

The Mitsubishi Regional Jet will complete another set of test flights in the latter half of 2018 following design changes, keeping Japan's first homegrown passenger jet in decades on track for delivery starting in mid-2020, the head of Mitsubishi Aircraft says.

The MRJ's delivery date has been postponed five times, most recently in January 2017 for design modifications that involve shifting some equipment and wiring.

But a fresh design is within reach, and Mitsubishi Aircraft has resumed production of fittings for the plane, President Hisakazu Mizutani said.

The wiring redesign will kick off in earnest in 2018, he said.

Mizutani said after becoming president of the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries unit in April that the design changes would conclude around autumn 2017.

He denied that development had fallen behind schedule, saying that everything was going nearly as planned.

The president also has spoken of possibly handing off the first MRJs at the end of 2019, but he insists that date is ultimately an internal target.

The company has promised clients an initial delivery date in mid-2020, and will keep its word, he said.

The MRJ needs to receive type certification by that time in order to fly commercially. Around 3,000 hours of flight testing are thought necessary to earn that stamp of approval.

Mitsubishi Aircraft says the jet has racked up over 1,500 hours in test flights conducted in the U.S., and Mizutani said additional flights reflecting the design changes will occur in the second half of 2018.

But according to Japan's transport ministry, the aircraft is not yet prepared to begin test flights for type certification or undergo review.

Mitsubishi Aircraft has roped in orders for 447 of the jets so far. But 40 of those came from American carrier Eastern Air Lines, which was purchased by rival Swift Air in 2017.

Though the Japanese company continues to negotiate with Eastern over the MRJs, it is possible they could cancel the order for the 40 jets, Mizutani said.

The aircraft developer ended March 2017 in a financial hole of roughly 51 billion yen or $452 million at current rates, and is borrowing from its parent to continue work on the jet.


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JAPAN: Eastern Air Lines Cancels Order For 40 Mitsubishi Regional Jets From Mitsubishi Aircraft

Mitsubishi Aircraft has agreed with Eastern Air Lines to cancel the U.S. carrier's order for 40 Mitsubishi Regional Jets.

Mitsubishi Aircraft has received orders for around 450 MRJs.

According to the Mitsubishi Heavy Industries unit, the cancellation will not affect delivery of other jets.

Mitsubishi Aircraft, which has pushed back its first deliveries five times already, now expects to ship its first jets in 2020.

Eastern Air last year was purchased by rival Swift Air. Eastern then lost its airline license.

The carrier ordered the passenger jets four years ago, and delivery was originally scheduled to start in 2019, but Mitsubishi Aircraft has twice pushed back the date, which had been up in the air before the cancellation.

The Japanese company is now anxious about other orders, like one from SkyWest of the U.S. for 200 aircraft.

The MRJ made its maiden test flight in 2015 and has been taking to the air for further tests in the U.S. since then.

Last January, however, Mitsubishi Aircraft was forced to announce a fifth delay, saying the MRJ failed to be certified as airworthy by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration.

Since then, other makers of regional jets have been heaping pressure on Mitsubishi Aircraft. Brazil's Embraer, regarded as the biggest player in the space, is in tie-up negotiations with Boeing.

Canada's Bombardier has already joined hands with Airbus. And a Chinese company, Comac, has introduced its own regional jet.

In Japan, the fate of the MRJ progra, the first effort to produce a domestic passenger aircraft in about a half century is a matter of national pride.

Amid all the media attention, there are hopes that the jet can debut in time for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has decided to act. It has brought the problem ridden Mitsubishi Aircraft under the direct supervision of its president, Shunichi Miyanaga.

The parent company also plans to hire aircraft engineers away from U.S. makers so that they can help the MRJ win certification by the end of next year.


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AirTran Airways

Southwest Airlines will officially complete its integration of AirTran Airways – a little more than four years since announcing plans to acquire AirTran – on Sunday, December 28 as AirTran flight 001 blocks in at Tampa International Airport just before midnight.

For many, Sunday is bittersweet; employees are excited to complete the integration, but some customers are not happy to see the beloved AirTran brand be switched to Southwest.

Over the last two decades, AirTran has had a long and significant presence in the U.S. airline industry as it dates back to the introduction of ValuJet. In this week’s FlashBack Friday, we take a look at ValuJet and AirTran.

When Eastern Air Lines went out of business in 1991, it left a void in the Southern travel market which was growing at a rapid pace, but Robert Priddy – the founder of Atlantic Southeast Airlines and Florida Gulf Airlines – started working on plans for ValuJet – which he helped co-found in 1992 – to help fill the void.

From the beginning, very few took ValuJet seriously; it had a cartoon character painted on the fuselage of its old DC-9s it acquired from Delta, and its orange and yellow all coach seats were not really eye candy. Plus, ValuJet based its operations in Atlanta where it would have to directly compete with Delta who had been dominating the Atlanta market since 1941.

Despite what people thought about ValuJet, it still continued to push that it offered low-fares and only flew full size jets, and passengers started jumping on the bandwagon.

On October 26, 1993, ValuJet flew its inaugural flight – ValuJet 901 – from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport to Tampa with 105 customers. Shortly after the first flight, word started spreading quickly that ValuJet’s fares were much lower than Delta’s, and passengers really appreciated this.

Meanwhile, the airline became very profitable thanks to non-union crews, low fares, high aircraft utilization, and sub-contracting most operational functions, and the airline filed for an initial public offering (IPO) in 1994; it soon became one of the hottest trades on Wall Street.

Some saw what was going on at the airline as a recipe for disaster.

Two years after starting flights, ValuJet placed an order for 50 MD-95s which later became known as the 717 when Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas. This was the first time in history that an airline as young as ValuJet would become the launch customer of a new aircraft.