China is expected to drive growth in commercial aircraft orders as demand for air travel takes off over the next five years. The world’s second-largest economy expects to order more than 2,000 aircraft in the period.
The forecast from Civil Aviation Administration of China vice minister Wang Changshun came at the Hong Kong air show. It came as Boeing took an order for five new generation 747-8 aircraft from Air China in a deal worth £950 million.
Air China chairman Kong Dong said the company and its subsidiaries aimed to increase it fleet size from 430 to 700 aircraft by 2015. Separately, the HNA Group, parent of Hainan Airlines, agreed to purchase 38 aircraft, including six 777s, and 32 787s.
Boeing expects China’s purchases of aircraft will help to drive overall demand in Asia Pacific, where average annual air traffic growth is expected to be at 6.8% over the next 20 years.
Demand from Asia Pacific is likely to form a significant portion of the demand from global airlines, which Boeing said would need 30,900 new passenger and freight aircraft by 2030, valued at $3.6 trillion.
But the outlook for the industry over the coming year will be clouded by uncertainties in the global economy, such as high oil prices and weakening defence spending.
Marlin Dailey, Boeing executive vice president, sales and marketing commercial airplanes, said: “This year will be a bit slower than last year, the reason being is that most of the near term production capacity that we have available has already been sold.
“And so airline growth is going to slow down a bit before they make those decisions because they are talking about airplane availability in the 2014/15 time frame.”