TOKYO: Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp on Monday confirmed deliveries of Japan’s first passenger jet in half a century would be delayed by another two years because the plane’s electrical systems need to be reconfigured.
The postponement of the Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ), the fifth since the programme began, means its launch customer, ANA Holdings Inc, will not receive delivery until 2020, the firm said in a press release.
The aircraft maker, which is two-thirds owned by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd, has so far secured 233 firm orders with 194 options to buy.
This is the fifth time that the company has pushed back the commercial rollout of its Mitsubishi Regional Jet (MRJ), Japan’s first domestically produced passenger plane for over half a century.
The decision to move back the first customer delivery to mid-2020 from mid-2018 comes after local media reports said the plane needed more design changes to ensure it was safe.
The problem was linked to the location of certain electronic equipment, the Nikkei business daily and other Japanese media reported.
The company said it was modifying the design of “electrical configurations” to meet the latest safety standards, which have become more and more strict given the threat of terrorism.
“We now have to think of risks that are unthinkable in the normal course of things, such as a massive flood of water damaging electrical systems or a bomb explosion destroying those systems,” Nobuo Kishi, Vice President of the firm’s aviation unit, told a press briefing in Tokyo.
Development costs could come in as much as 40 per cent higher than an original range of between 150 to 180 billion yen ($1.3 billion to $1.6 billion), the firm said, citing stricter safety standards.
The development of the MRJ has suffered a series of delays, largely owing to software upgrades and other design changes.
The original plan when the programme started in 2008 was for the first customer delivery to begin in 2013. — Agencies
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