Japan cautiously explores new airliner amid SpaceJet’s shadow

Japanese industry is still digesting the country’s ambition to develop a new airliner, with a clear appreciation of the risks involved in a project of such magnitude. The country’s Tier 1 manufacturers were hard hit by the failure of the Mitsubishi SpaceJet regional jet to enter production, according to an industry source familiar with Japan’s airliner ambitions. The failure of the programme, which was finally shut down in 2023 after years of challenges and delays, will greatly influence future decisions. Nonetheless, Japanese industry and Japan’s powerful Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) have started discussing how Japanese technology and know-how can be integrated into a new aircraft. Tokyo is prepared to invest around Y5t ($31b) in the effort. In March, the Japan Aircraft Development Corporation (JADC) laid out a new national aerospace strategy that underlined the lack of exposure by key aerospace firms such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI), Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and ShinMaywa to the booming narrowbody segment – the companies are key players on Boeing’s widebody programmes - and laid out the ambition to launch a new airliner in the 2030s. METI, which oversees the JADC, feels that demand for narrowbody aircraft in the developing world will see aerospace industrial work move to new markets at the expense of Japanese industry. It also feels that Japan needs to capitalise on the learnings of the SpaceJet experience. In June, Hiroyuki Koguchi, senior vice-president at MHI, gave a sense of the industry’s wariness, stating that the time is not yet right to commit to a new programme. One challenge, says the source, will be selling the idea of an expensive new airliner to shareholders of listed Japanese firms. MHI reportedly sunk Y1t into SpaceJet, which has previously been branded as the Mitsubishi Regional Jet, or MRJ.<br/>