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Mitsubishi Aircraft to launch Mitsubishi Regional Jet

Japan is home to some of the world’s biggest automakers, is one of the world’s biggest ship makers, and its trains run on subways and high-speed tracks around the world. One industry Japan hasn’t been able to penetrate is construction of passenger jets.


August 31, 2015  By Bloomberg News

Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. is aiming to change that with Japan’s first new passenger plane in more than four decades — and its first passenger jet ever. The Mitsubishi Regional Jet will make its first flight in the second half of October, for about an hour, the Nagoya-based company said in a statement Monday.

Japan wants to break the virtual lock that Embraer SA and Bombardier Inc. have on the market for small passenger jets, as Boeing Co. and Airbus Group SE control the market for larger passenger planes. With Montreal-based Bombardier now focusing on its larger CSeries jets, which will be able to carry as many as 160 passengers, Mitsubishi Aircraft sees an opening it believes it can fill. The 92-seat MRJ90 sells at a list price of $47.3 million.

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