Mitsubishi's SpaceJet regional aircraft, now in development and configured specifically for the U.S. market, will be delayed again as costs mount with a fiscal-year loss projected at $2.5 billion.
Previously scheduled to deliver the jet in its fiscal year 2020, Mitsubishi said Thursday in a financial briefing in Japan that it now expects deliveries to begin in fiscal 2021, which runs from April 2021 to March 2022, or later.
The SpaceJet M100 model was launched at the Paris Air Show in 2019 as a reconfigured concept for the smaller, second variant of the two-plane Mitsubishi Regional Jet family, one designed to fit the regulations governing regional jets in the United States.
American carriers work under "scope clause" restrictions with their pilot unions that limit the size of regional jets, which are flown by lower-paid pilots. The SpaceJet M100 exactly meets the scope-clause weight restriction of 86,000 pounds and will carry the full U.S. limit of 76 passengers in three classes.
The first, larger MRJ model, a 90-seat airplane previously called the MRJ90 and now renamed the SpaceJet M90, is completing flight tests in Moses Lake and is scheduled to enter commercial service with All Nippon Airways (ANA) of Japan this year. That model is fully seven years late.
In a statement, Mitsubishi said the first test flight M100 is in final preparations, after which the aircraft will ferry to the United States to join the M90 flight test fleet at Moses Lake.
"We will have a better understanding of our schedule once this happens," the statement said.
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