All Nippon Airways buys 25 Mitsubishi aircraft
All Nippon Airways Co. will purchase 25 passenger aircraft manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., the first domestically produced passenger planes in more than three decades.
The board of directors of ANA, a leading domestic airline, decided to place a firm order Thursday for 15 of the next-generation Mitsubishi Regional Jet aircraft with an option for 10 more.
ANA plans to fly them in its local routes from 2013.
With ANA’s decision, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. announced Friday that it will go ahead with production of the aircraft, only the second to be made in Japan since the end of World War II.
It will set up a subsidiary to develop and manufacture the MRJ with capital injection by Toyota Motor Corp. and Mitsubishi Corp.
Rival carrier Japan Airlines Corp. has yet to decide whether to order the MRJ, saying it has neither evaluated quality standards nor studied Mitsubishi’s commitment to after-sales service.
Even if it selects the MRJ as parts of its fleet of new small aircraft, it will not seek delivery until 2015 at the earliest, a JAL executive said. Japan’s first domestically produced aircraft in the postwar era was the YS-11, manufactured by defunct Nihon Aircraft Manufacturing
