Even while India is struggling to get off the block with regard to its proposal to develop a regional transport aircraft, Turkey has taken a lead, having signed up with Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), a US-based company, to produce the country’s first regional jet. This was revealed at the 51st Paris International Airshow.

Speaking to the media SNC President Eren Ozmen said SNC had formed a wholly-owned subsidiary TRJet Havacilik Teknolojileri Anonim Sirketi (TRJet). The Turkish Ministry of Transport, Maritime Affairs & Communications is supporting the programme of producing the country’s first regional aircraft project.

The Turkish corporation, TRJet will be based in Ankara, Turkey and will serve the regional aircraft project as well as the commercial aviation sector. The project utilises the TRJ328 aircraft, a modernised version of the Dornier 328, as a first step towards production of Turkey’s first domestically built passenger aircxraft, the TRJ628. The TRJet subsidiary will utilimately produce and sell the TRJ328, as well as other variants. The TRJ328 roll out year has been put at 2023.

Ozmen said “we believe that the combination of technology, research, collaboration and decades of experience is the right recipe for TRJets future success in Turkey and around the globe.” He said he had a different view of the 30-50 seat aircraft and that it was not a dying market. There are nearly 5,000 airplanes in that seat segment operating in the world and he believes that they would be needed for short haul and very thin routes.

He also mentioned that the aircraft was good for special mission operations - medical evacuation, maritime etc and it could take off and land on unimproved runways.