Fast 5: Honda Aircraft's CEO On New Jet

Hideto Yamasaki was named president and CEO of Honda Aircraft, based in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 2022, following the retirement of HondaJet creator Michimasa Fujino. 

Honda Aircraft is moving forward with commercialization of the all-new HondaJet 2600 light jet, to be offered alongside its sister, the smaller HondaJet Elite II very light jet.  Have you firmed up the interior design and performance specifications? 

We are trying to concentrate on the interior. It’s going to be a greater concentration of how we’re going to express the Next Generation of what the 2600 will be.

Having all the assets of the total Honda, we do have automobiles, motorcycles and others. We have designers. We have development people who can do those. We are having the automobile guys in Los Angeles drawing the interior sketches (of the 2600) right now. That is now becoming more of an interesting theme. It’s going to be changed from—maybe the traditional. We are trying to make some changes and trying to make some kind of a new interior. I cannot say anything that is definite yet. We are still having a trial right now. 

In the next NBAA, we will be announcing the naming of the 2600 concept. We have been voting. We will announce the official name that will be in commercialization (of the product.) 

Do you have a launch customer for the HondaJet 2600?  

We haven’t figured it out yet. We have around 300 letters of interest right now. So, hopefully by NBAA we will try to arrange the kind of pricing so that those customers can actually be more serious. So that we will be able to really see the true, true, true demand. Of course, the 300 is already (an attractive number) that we are looking for. But we will be able to see the more concrete numbers coming in once we start opening some of the features. Most of them came two years ago when we announced (the concept). Maybe about two-thirds of them came in that moment. But the rest of the one-third came after that, including (after) our commitment statement about commercializing it. We are receiving more firm interest. 

How are you finding the market right now with higher interest rates and other uncertainties? 

It’s not growing but it’s not slipping down. Even with that, the price of the used market is still kind of trending. Given that, demand is very strong. We are not losing any customers .... We still have some trouble with enough supply. 

How many HondaJet Elite II aircraft are you planning to deliver this year?  

A. We are counting right now 28 or around 30. We are producing about that. We don’t have any inventory. As much as we can produce, we will be able to deliver. That production is purely based on the supply chain issue that we are facing. 

Q. What are your delivery projections for 2024?  

A. Next year should be about the same. We are not going to enlarge that much due to the kind of steadiness that we want to do for the business. That is very important right now. We don’t want to go up and down, up and down. Steadiness is very much needed for our associates. All the suppliers are very much the same. They want to have the same kind of steadiness