SkyWest, Trans States Continue Waiting Out MRJ Delays

By Aaron Karp, ATW Daily News 

The two largest customers for the Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. MRJ are sticking with the Japanese company despite repeated program delays and concerns over scope clause restrictions, but the two US regional airline operators could be forced to begin making decisions on altering their orders as soon as next year.

Utah-based SkyWest Inc., parent of regionals SkyWest Airlines and ExpressJet Airlines, and St. Louis-based Trans States Holdings, parent of regionals Compass Airlines, GoJet Airlines and Trans States Airlines, together hold 150 of the 223 firm orders for the MRJ. All of the orders (100 for SkyWest and 50 for Trans States) are for the MRJ90, which is currently in flight testing. But the MRJ90 is too heavy to be operated under contract for a major U.S. airline because of pilot labor contract scope clauses.




SkyWest CEO Chip Childs, speaking to reporters at the Regional Airline Association (RAA) convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, indicated that SkyWest is much more interested in the MRJ90, which would likely be configured with 76 seats in the US market, than the smaller MRJ70. "In my view it's a pretty big if" whether scope clauses will be changed to allow the MRJ90 to be operated by US regional airlines, he said, adding, "Our job is to make sure [the weight issue] is on the table" when major airlines negotiate new contracts with pilots' unions.




When asked by ATW whether SkyWest could cancel its MRJ90 order rather than convert it to MRJ70s, Childs responded, "Yeah, but we don't have scope relief today and we haven't canceled ... We're always going to stay optimistic about it. We have no intention of canceling."




Childs said there is no firm timeline on when SkyWest will receive its first MRJ.




Trans States president Richard Leach said January 2019 "is sort of our target" for taking delivery of the MRJ. But he conceded that Trans States will have to make a decision on switching to the MRJ70 about 18-24 months before the planned first delivery.




Like Childs, Leach prefers the MRJ90 over the MRJ70, but he said he will take the MRJ70 if necessary. "I like them both," he told ATW. "I just think that if you look at the market, the 90 brings more flexibility ... If we were to say we want the 70 over the 90, then obviously our January "19 delivery target would not come to fruition. It would probably be later that year or early 2020."




Trans States was originally supposed to take delivery of its first MRJ in 2014 and as recently as last year was expecting a 2017 first delivery. "As far as the delays, I'm extremely disappointed in that," Leach said. "I would be lying if I said I wasn't."




But Leach said he's confident the MRJ will be "a great airplane" and noted he "was watching every minute [of the MRJ's November 2015] first flight streaming on my computer." He added, "We would not very easily turn our back on [Mitsubishi Aircraft]. Right now, we're still 100% in lockstep with them."









Mitsubishi Aircraft executives conceded to ATW on the sidelines of the RAA conference this week that the scope clause issue represented a "risk" for the MRJ program. "The scope issue is between airline management and unions," Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. America chairman and CEO Masao Yamagami said, noting that the MRJ70 would meet current scope clause requirements.