Asia-Pacific Aerospace Briefs Today
October 15th 2026
Today’s briefs report news from HSBC, JP Lease Products & Services (JLPS), Kawasaki Heavy Industries, and Qatar Airways Group. Read More »
Qatar Airways Group has completed its inaugural Japanese Operating Lease with Call Option (JOLCO) financing transaction, covering three Boeing 787-9 aircraft, in partnership with HSBC and JP Lease Products & Services (JLPS). HSBC acted as the debt arranger and sole lender, while JLPS underwrote and arranged the equity portion. The financing is the first of three planned JOLCO transactions under Qatar Airways’ new Japanese financing program, which will cover seven aircraft in total. JLPS will serve as equity arranger across the program.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries announced that it has successfully completed Japan’s first operational test of a small aircraft engine equipped with a newly developed hydrogen combustor that achieves one of the lowest nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions in the world. The test was part of the “Development of Core Technologies for Hydrogen Aircraft” Project, selected by the New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO) and subsidized as a Green Innovation Fund project, “Next-Generation Aircraft Development.” The project aims to develop hydrogen combustion technologies and related systems for practical use in hydrogen-fueled aircraft engines. For this latest test, Kawasaki equipped a small aircraft engine with its newly developed low-NOx hydrogen combustor and operated it on 100% hydrogen fuel. The test was conducted at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) Noshiro Rocket Testing Center in Akita Prefecture. The test confirmed stable combustion and thrust generation across the full range of engine operations, including ignition, engine spool-up, steady-state operation under cruise conditions, transient acceleration and deceleration, and engine shutdown.
