Deal Potentially Worth $4 Billion

Regional carrier SkyWest plans to acquire as many as 100 Mitsubishi Regional Jets in deal announced Wednesday at the Farnborough International Air Show worth as much as $4 billion. The deal is part of an overall fleet replacement program at the airline.

Reuters reports that SkyWest president Brad Rich said the company has about 725 airplanes currently. He said the deal for the MRJ airplanes is part of a strategy to "recreate an aircraft model that will deliver more of what our major partners are requiring today and trying to combine that with the new technology that is coming on to market."

Deliveries are scheduled to begin in 2017 for the 70-90 seat airplanes, which are the first new commercial airliners to be produced in Japan in about half a century.

In a news release, Pratt & Whitney said it would be providing 200 PurePower PW1200G for the airplanes. "The PurePower engine family offers significant benefits that have been proven extensively in thousands of hours of full engine testing, including hundreds of hours of flight testing," said Todd Kallman, president, Pratt & Whitney Commercial Engines.

The PurePower family of engines uses an advanced gear system allowing the engine's fan to operate at a different speed than the low-pressure compressor and turbine. The combination of the gear system and an all-new advanced core deliver the improvements in fuel efficiency, environmental emissions and noise.

(Artist's concept image provided by Mitsubishi)

FMI: www.skywest.com, www.purepowerengines.com