Mitsubishi on August 22, 2013 announced a further delay and pushback to its Mitsubishi Regional Jet program. The announced delay will postpone the program’s first flight and entry into service dates by well over a year.
In April 2012, the program had planned first flight in the last quarter of 2013 but has now set the first flight of the aircraft to the second quarter of 2015 which will add another year and a half to the ongoing delays and setbacks the program has faced.
First delivery, which was planned for mid 2015 to the first quarter of 2016 will not occur and is not tentatively scheduled to occur in the second quarter of 2017 to the program’s launch customer All Nippon Airways which has 15 MRJs on firm order plus 10 options.
Mitsubishi indicated that the delay was caused by aircraft systems and component design, along with parallel certification issues taking longer than the company had expected.
This event marks an ongoing issue with the program to meet its targeted goals with the end result being that if the program meets the new goal of first flight in 2015 it will represent a three year program delay in both first light and initial entry into service.
