Japan's Mitsubishi Aircraft Delays First Jet Flight to November

Mitsubishi Aircraft Corp. said it will put off the first flight of its regional jet to next month, its fifth delay, as it makes improvements to a flight pedal in the cockpit.

The company had planned to make the debut flight next week but is pushing it back to the week starting Nov. 9, it said in an e-mailed statement Friday.

Mitsubishi Aircraft isn't delaying the first plane delivery, due in 2017, Miho Takahashi, a Tokyo-based spokeswoman for the company, said in a telephone interview Friday. The company, based at Nagoya airport in central Japan, has delayed delivery of the jet three times and has now tapped bullet-train specialists to ensure its completion as it competes for orders of planes with less than 100 seats with Brazil's Embraer SA and Canada's Bombardier Inc.

The company has won a total of 407 orders, including options and purchase rights, for its two types of planes, which seat from 78 to 92 passengers. ANA Holdings Inc., Japan's largest airline, is the first buyer, while the two biggest customers are SkyWest Inc. and Trans States Airlines Inc. in North America.

Chris Cooper, Kiyotaka Matsuda, Bloomberg News
Photographer: Kiyoshi Ota/Bloomberg