Boeing outlook sees a decade of shrinking airplane sales
BOEING sees a turbulent ride ahead for the jetliner market, with sales contracting sharply over the next decade before eventually rebounding in the 2030s as new models and technologies spur growth.
The Irish Independent revealed last week that Ryanair is considering buying as many as 200 Boeing Max jets.
In its first market forecast since the coronavirus pandemic upended travel, Boeing predicted that planemakers will deliver 18,350 commercial aircraft through decade’s end. That’s 11pc less than the company was expecting a year ago, before Covid sapped demand for travel and new planes.
The outlook underscores the deep slump afflicting global aviation, with years of torrid airline growth giving way to a fight for survival until a vaccine or treatment coaxes more consumers back to the skies. Boeing released the report days after deciding to consolidate production of its marquee 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina, shutting down a final assembly line at a storied plant in Everett, Washington, to save money.
“We’re a long way from the bottom, which was mid-April, and it’s a long way back from here to full recovery,” Darren Hulst, Boeing’s vice president of commercial marketing, told reporters in a briefing before the forecast was made public.
The aerospace titan typically releases a 20-year commercial outlook at the industry’s annual mid-summer trade expo, which was cancelled this year. In addition, Boeing decided this year to provide a 10-year snapshot to help illuminate the Covid-ravaged marketplace.
Airbus, Boeing’s European rival, doesn’t have any plans to share its crystal ball.
“In the current, unprecedented context, it is too early for Airbus to issue a new forecast,” Stefan Schaffrath, an Airbus spokesman, said in an email. “Our analysis of the global market environment and the direct feedback we are getting from customers worldwide indicate that this crisis will go well beyond 2021, with air traffic not expected to recover to pre-Covid levels before 2023 at best, maybe even 2025.”
At the worst of the crisis, about two-thirds of the global jetliner fleet was parked along airport taxiways and in storage lots. While about 500 a week of those jets returned to the skies during June and July, the recovery has stalled.
The shock will reshape airlines and the trends that have governed jetliner sales for the past 15 years. Looking ahead, more sales – around 56pc of this decade’s total – will be driven by airlines looking for greener, more fuel-efficient models to replace older jets, Mr Hulst said.
Boeing expects fewer carriers to ‘up-gauge’, or switch to bigger jets, particularly on domestic flights.
The company expects singleaisle demand to gravitate to the 160-to-180-seat range served by its 737 Max 8, which has been grounded since March 2019 following two crashes that killed 346 people. While the Max’s flying ban could be lifted in the coming months, the model faces a tough competitor in Airbus’s A320 family of jets.
For sales of twin-aisle planes, the focus will be on midsize aircraft, especially in the next five-to-10 years, Boeing said.
Demand for flying behemoths such as the 777X – the company’s newest model – will be the last to recover.