Japan revealed its first passenger jet on Saturday, Oct. 18 after a 4-year suspension.
Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. revealed the regional het in a hanger in Nagoya Airport in celebration of this historic event which 500 people witnessed including presidents if customers Trans States Airlines Inc. and ANA Holdings Inc., as well as government officials and suppliers.
"This will give a big lift to Japan's aviation industry," a vice minister of transport Akihiro Nishimura exclaimed during the ceremony.
Currently, Mitsubishi is manufacturing two versions of the plane, a 78-seater and a 92-seater, with the reported cost of building the planes is 180 billion yen ($1.7 billion).
Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. plans to conduct first flight of the jet in June next year.
"It's taken a lot of hard work to get to this. We're looking forward to getting the plane in 2017," ANA President Shinichiro told in an interview.
According to Richard Aboulafia, Vice President of Virginia-based consultant Teal Group, despite the delay, MRJ program, Mitsubishi Regional Jet made by Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp., is still set to be the frontrunner in Japan's jet industry, pioneering a next-generation engine.
The company aims to gain 50 percent of the global market for regional aircraft towards the next 20 years.
There is an increasing demand for travel making the number of jets produced have an increasing demand as well. Bloomberg reports that the seating capacity of jets will increase from 70 to 130 seating capacity to 6,580 by 2033.
Meanwhile, both Russia and China are also packing up on jet orders. China will deliver its first ARJ21-700 plane to local airline before the year ends, while Russia produced the Sukhoi SuperJet 100 which already started flying in commercial airports back in 2011.
Meanwhile, Mitsubishi Aircraft will reportedly need to make a come back from the 4 years it lagged behind.
In order to do that, the company plans to hire more engineers in the MRJ project by 30 percent.
