The long-awaited Mitsubishi Regional Jet will have to wait even longer. With an announcement on Christmas, Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. pushed back the regional jet’s first delivery from the second quarter of 2017 to “approximately one year later.”
The announcement comes about a month after its first flight in November 2015. Mitsubishi said that the first flight tests confirmed “the basic characteristics to be satisfactory,” but several other issues were recognized.
In a news conference in Nagoya, Japan, Mitsubishi Aircraft president Hiromichi Morimoto further explained that the regional jet passed strength tests for normal use, but the concern is it won’t pass certification tests, according to an article in the Seattle Times.
Mitsubishi has racked up over 400 orders of the MRJ, with one of the biggest orders belonging to U.S. regional airline SkyWest. With other regional jet competition like Bombardier’s new C Series and Embraer’s E-Jets, the delay could put them at a disadvantage in the market.
The MRJ is Japan’s first new commercial passenger plane in 50 years.
