Originally Posted by
deltajuliet
I just don't understand why these manufacturers would build jets that are essentially unsellable in the US due to scope. They're too small for mainline to bother picking up, and it's a helluva risk hoping regionals will get scope relaxed. Didn't happen at American, didn't happen at United, and it's not on the table at Delta. The planning departments at Embraer and Mitsubishi should be fired. Would it really be so hard to bring the weight down a little instead of risking tens of billions? Stupid.
They dun effed up, basically. From the article I posted on page 4
This is not a new issue for the MRJ, which has struggled with the scope clause restriction almost since the program’s launch (Aviation Daily, June 24, 2013). But Yamagami said the company is hopeful that U.S. airlines will relax some restrictions when pilot contracts become amendable. “The unions are sticking [to] these restrictions,” he said. “Without showing how good our aircraft is, management [at airlines] will not challenge this point.”
And
“It has been 50 years since Japan developed a [commercial air transport] aircraft,” he said. “We underestimated the certification process, and we now know we needed more people to prepare verification and validation instead of just engineers.” The issue was not just with international bodies, such as the FAA and European Aviation Safety Agency. “We had the same challenge with our regulatory authority, the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau, which had more experience certifying helicopters but not much in certifying transport aircraft,” he said.