Industry Bombardier concludes sale of CRJ program to Mitsubishi

Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier has confirmed the previously announced sale of the CRJ regional aircraft series to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries. The deal is valued at approximately $550 million, said Bombardier. This number is subject to post-closing adjustments and other assumption of liabilities by MHI. Bombardier has now nearly completely withdrawn from the commercial aviation market.

With this sale, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has acquired the maintenance, support, refurbishment, marketing, and sales activities for the CRJ Series aircraft. The company has also taken over the support and services network in Montreal, Québec and Toronto, Ontario.

Also, the type certificates have been transferred. From now, MHI will also operates service centres located in Bridgeport, West Virginia, and Tucson, Arizona, as well as the type certificates. The deal between Bombardier and Mitsubishi was originally announced back in Summer 2019.

With the acquisition, Mitsubishi has decided to create a dedicated MHI RJ Aviation Group, that has begun operations this week. The group is headquartered in Montréal, Canada.

Hiroaki Yamamoto, President & CEO of the MHI RJ Aviation Group commented: "I am pleased to announce the opening chapter of MHIRJ’s story [...] Building on the solid foundations already in place and with the strong support of the MHI group of companies, there is new energy on board and our team is committed to serving the regional aviation market and becoming a platform for growth in the industry.”

Bombardier has announced, that it will continue to supply spare parts and further components. Furthermore, the manufacturer will assemble the remaining 15 CRJ aircraft in the backlog as of Mach 31, 2020. The completion of the deliveries is expected in the second half of 2020.

"Bombardier retains certain liabilities representing a portion of the credit and residual value guarantees totalling $288 million as of March 31, 2020. This amount is largely fixed and not subject to future changes in aircraft value and is mainly payable by Bombardier over the next four years," the company concluded.

The CRJ aircraft family consists of the CRJ100, CRJ200, CRJ700, CRJ900, CRJ1000 and CRJ550. The latter was announced and delivered in 2019 for the first time. Bombardier did not produce the CRJ100 and CRJ200 in the past years, but rather the CRJ700, CRJ900 and CRJ100 aircraft.