India needs 1,750 new aircraft over 20 years to meet rising traffic: Airbus

India will require 1,750 new passenger and cargo aircraft over the next 20 years to meet the increase in both passenger and freight traffic, according to Airbus' latest India Market Forecast. The country will need 1,320 new single-aisle aircraft and 430 wide-body ones, in an order valued at around $255 billion, to cater to the demand.

The projections are based on a year-on-year growth in domestic air passenger traffic at 8.1 per cent in the next 20 years, almost twice the global average of 4.4 per cent.

"India will witness an over five-fold growth in air traffic in the next 20 years. Considering the infrastructure constraints, Delhi alone will need 70 daily flights of A380s, just based on the current scenario at UK's busiest airport Heathrow, where 10 per cent of the daily traffic is being handled by A380s. That is going to be the potential demand for aircraft in India," Joost Van Der Heijden, head of marketing, Asia and North America, Airbus said on Friday.

India is set to become the world's third-largest aviation market by 2019-20. Airbus has a backlog of orders for over 530 aircraft till date, according to the company. 

On an average, one Airbus aircraft will be delivered to India every week for next 10 years.