Aerolease signed a contract for the firm order 10 Mitsubishi Regional Jets and 10 options on August 30, 2016. The contract ended on December 31, 2020 through a mutual agreement and Aerolease will reconsider the order when aircraft development resumes.
On Friday (January 8, 2021), Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation announced that through a mutual agreement, Aerolease Aviation has ended their contract to purchase up to 20 Mitsubishi Regional Jets (MRJs). The original contract was signed on August 30, 2016 and was for 10 firm orders and 10 options for the MRJ. The contract ended on December 31, 2020 and Aerolease will re-evaluate a possible order when development of the Mitsubishi MRJ ‘SpaceJet’ resumes. In Friday’s announcement, Mitsubishi Aircraft’s President, Takaoki Niwa, said,
“Aerolease has been a long-time customer and a major supporter of the MRJ/SpaceJet program. We appreciate all of their support for our program, our company and the regional jet industry.”
Also commenting on the contract termination, Aerolease Aviation’s Managing Partner, Jep Thornton, added,
“Aerolease has been a strong advocate of Mitsubishi Aircraft’s efforts to produce a latest generation regional jet with the SpaceJet. It has been a pleasure working with the Mitsubishi Aircraft team over the past five years. It is clear to us that the market is in need of such an aircraft and that creates a unique opportunity. Although our agreement with Mitsubishi Aircraft has ended at the end of 2020, we wish the team success in eventually restarting the program as soon as practicable and we remain interested in resuming our relationship with them when that happens.”
Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation is based in Nagoya, Japan and is a Mitsubishi Heavy Industries (MHI) Group company. Last year the company announced that they would temporarily pause SpaceJet M90 (previously called MRJ) development activities until the business environment improves.
Source: Mitsubishi Aircraft Corporation