Boeing sees need for 43,600 new aircrafts, cautions on slow output

By Julie Johnsson

 

Boeing Co. predicted airlines will need 43,600 new aircraft over the next 20 years, with markets like China and Southeast Asia leading the push as greater prosperity gives more people the means to travel.

 

However, the US planemaker is slightly less bullish than a year ago as — when it estimated that 43,975 planes would enter the global fleet — reflecting a tempering of forecasts for global economic growth. 

 

While trade wars and tariffs initiated by President Donald Trump are roiling the global economy, the aviation industry has weathered other crises and geopolitcal turmoil over the decades, most notably the corona pandemic that grounded fleets around the world just a few years ago. Over the past 25 years, air travel tripled while the global fleet doubled, Darren Hulst, Boeing vice president of commercial market, told reporters in a June 10 briefing.

 

“At the end of the day, our market has proven to be both resilient and a growth industry,” Hulst said. 

 

Boeing expects the global commercial aircraft fleet to double to 49,600 airplanes by 2044, in line with the market outlook provided a few days ago by Airbus SE, its European rival. Airlines in emerging markets will operate more than half of the world’s jetliners by then, up from nearly 40% in 2024, according to Boeing.

 

Single-aisle aircraft will expand their hold on air travel, accounting for 72% of the global fleet over the next two decades, Boeing forecasts. That’s up from 66% in the current fleet.

 

For airlines mapping out their growth trajectory, narrowbody models like Airbus’s A320neo family and Boeing’s 737 Max are frustratingly difficult to line up. That’s because air travel has grown sharply since the Covid pandemic, whereas Boeing and Airbus are sputtering along at manufacturing rates similar to their output a decade ago. 

 

The result is a shortage of current-generation jetliners. The duopolists have made about 1,500 fewer jets than they’d originally planned — and the shortfall will continue to grow the longer it takes them to catch up, Hulst said. 

 

Bridging the gap between supply and demand will hinge on the planemakers’ ability to return to pre-pandemic delivery levels, “and then actually exceed those over the medium term,” Hulst said. “And that probably takes at least until the end of the decade.”