Turkey’s plane project hits turbulence
Technical, economic and political problems threaten TRJet, Turkey’s first passenger plane.
Turkey’s first passenger jet project is experiencing turbulence. The TRJet program is expected to produce the country’s first regional passenger jet by 2019, but there is a problem. According to Hurriyet newspaper’s Washington correspondent Tolga Tanis, the Turkish Undersecretariat for Defense Industries has informed TRJet’s lead manufacturer, Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), that at least 70% of the new aircraft must be produced in Turkey. Based in the United States and owned by the Turkish American husband-wife couple Fatih and Eren Ozmen, SNC argues that a 70% target before 2023 is unrealistic.
Additional reports in the Turkish press and by experts who spoke to Al-Monitor point to bigger problems that could keep the billion dollar TRJet project grounded come 2019. On the one hand, demand from domestic and international airline companies may be insufficient. Furthermore, although Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu hope the experience and know-how from the prestige project would help to expand Turkey’s still-infant defense and aerospace industries, whether the country’s state-owned Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) will be involved in TRJet is still unclear.
