Boeing Commercial Airplanes is looking forward to continuing industry resilience, with its latest current market outlook (CMO) projecting a $4.5 trillion market for 34,000 new airplanes, for delivery 2012-31. This compares with a predicted 20-year requirement for just fewer than 24,000 units it forecast in 2002. Ten years later, Boeing’s annual forecast has seen a shift toward larger aircraft with a steady decline in perceived future demand for regional jets (fewer than 90 seats) and a volatile market for large jetliners (747 size or bigger).
“[The market] has proven to be resilient, even during very challenging years,” said marketing vice president Randy Tinseth. “[It] is broader, deeper and more diverse than we’ve ever seen it.” Pointing out that world air travel (measured in revenue passenger-miles/kilometers) has grown at 5 percent a year since 1980, Tinseth said this period included “four recessions, two financial crises, two Gulf wars, one oil ‘shock,’ one near-pandemic and [the] 9/11 [terrorist attacks].”
More In Aircraft
