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Mitsubishi 'to build new passenger jet'
Staff and reports
TOKYO, Japan -- Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is planning to develop a 30-passenger jet for the U.S. and Japanese markets, the Nihon Keizai business daily reported Friday. It said Mitsubishi Heavy aimed to have a prototype ready by 2007. It would be Japan's first passenger jet and the first passenger aircraft developed since the 64-seat propeller-driven YS-11 was introduced in the early 1960s. Mitsubishi Heavy cooperated with five other Japanese manufacturers to build the YS-11. During the late 1990s, it was also involved in the YS-X project, which explored the possibility of Japan building a 100-seat regional jet. According to the Nikkei, Mitsubishi Heavy may use engines developed by U.S. maker Pratt & Whitney. It aims to keep the price down to about 1.2 billion yen ($10 million) per jet. North American marketMitsubishi Heavy sees demand for short-haul jets mainly in the North American market, where it already has tieups with Canadian maker Bombardier Aerospace and the U.S. giant Boeing Co. Mitsubishi and Bombardier worked together to build Bombardier's Global Express, a 20-seat jet unveiled in 1996. Boeing and Europe's Airbus dominate the market for large (100-seat plus) passenger jets, while Bombardier and Brazil's Empresa Brasileira de Aeronautica (Embraer) compete in the 50- to 100-seater regional jet sector. A number of other Asian countries, including China, South Korea and Indonesia, have looked to be part of the passenger jet construction industry, in partnership with Western makers. But the 1997 Asian economic crisis and the tourism downturn after the September 2001 terrorist attacks have meant there has been little progress with these plans. According to the Nikkei report, Mitsubishi Heavy believes that about 2000 propeller planes now in use worldwide will eventually be replaced with jets. Mitsubishi Heavy already makes the F-2 close support fighter and built the F-15 fighter under license from McDonnell Douglas. But its role in passenger jet development so far has been limited to a supplier of parts to Boeing, Bombardier and Airbus.
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