Air traffic in China, Asia Pacific plummets by more than half over COVID-19

Air traffic in China and other Asia Pacific countries has plummeted by more than half due to coronavirus scare, Darren Hulst, Vice president and global head of marketing,Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said on Friday.

Speaking on the sidelines of 'Wings India 2020', an aviation related event here, he said China used to witness as many as 15,000 departures on an average in a normal day and it has come down to about 3,000 flights a day whereas in India, it did not have much impact.

"The mainland China market in normal operations we see about 15,000 departures a day and at the peak of the virus, they were operating around 3,000 flights a day, about 80 per cent decline.

If you exclude China, in the rest of the Asia Pacific market, probably about 5,000 flights a day and at one point in time we saw about 2,500 or something like that. These are rough numbers," Hulst said.

He said other areas such as Europe and North America where the presence of the virus is felt, several airlines have started taking measures in terms of passenger admissions.

"I think we are going to see similar reduction in capacities by airlines for a very short period of time, not necessarily to the magnitude of that China number," he added.

Asked if there are any deferments in deliveries of aircraft by airlines due to slump in the industry, he said: "Aircraft deliveries are case by case and one on one basis. We have not done any deferring yet."

Boeing's sourcing from India stands at over USD one billion a year from over 200 suppliers who are manufacturing high-end systems and components for some of Boeing's most advanced products as part of its global supply chain and the aircraft maker has plans to double it to USD 2 billion, Hulst said without specifying any timeframe.

Through its skilling initiatives, Boeing is training hundreds of pilots, aircraft maintenance engineers, technicians and frontline factory workers across India with their industry partners like Tata, Rossell Techsys, Jaivel and Lakshmi Machine Works, a press release from Boeing said.