Following the news that MHI RJ Aviation Group launches as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd (MHI) and closes the acquisition of CRJ Series program from Bombardier Inc;

Mathew George, Ph.D., Aerospace & Defense Analyst at GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company, offers his view:

“The move allows MHI to significantly grow in to a serious player in the regional jet category beyond the Asia-Pacific market and support operations of, as MHI RJ puts it, ‘the world’s most successful regional aircraft family’, with over 1,900 regional jets in service, over 120 operators in 90 countries, a CRJ series aircraft takes off or lands every 5 seconds.

“An important takeaway is that MHI is now gaining considerable insight in to all aspects of a successful aircraft family that they can now use to further their own SpaceJet ambitions and hopefully deliver the already delayed M90 to customers by FY2021. In addition, it will help them understand, first hand, the customer requirements and garner insight for the proposed M100, their optimized version for the North American market.

“Another advantage is the possibility of converting some of the existing CRJ customers to future SpaceJet customers while exploring synergies between both programs to optimize service and spares, provided it doesn’t delay the program further.   “This is an important development for the aerospace industry showing medium to long term growth potential of regional jets and the confidence in growth that MHI sees in this subsector in both Asia-Pacific and North American markets. Regional jets may possibly gain further impetus from some scientists suggesting multiple short hops would be better to reduce chances of infections than a single long flight.”