Boeing (Stand 1200) is maintaining a bullish long-term outlook for commercial aviation in the Middle East, projecting that the region’s passenger traffic and in-service fleet will more than double by 2040. Middle Eastern carriers will increase their fleets at a higher than global average annual growth rate and continue to outpace their counterparts in North America and Europe in terms of relative annual passenger traffic growth, according to Boeing’s latest Commercial Market Outlook (CMO).
The U.S. airframer’s 2021 CMO, released ahead of the Dubai Airshow, forecasts that the commercial aircraft fleet in the Middle East will grow on average by 4.1 percent per year by 2040 from the pre-Covid base year 2019. That compares to a global annual rate of 3.1 percent. Operators in China, Southeast Asia, and South Asia will likely record a higher annual growth rate of the in-service fleets—of 4.4 percent, 5 percent, and 6.6 percent, respectively—but airlines in North America and Europe will trail Middle Eastern carriers, with a projected annual growth rate of 1.7 percent and 2.7 percent, respectively. In absolute terms, the Middle East-based fleet will expand from 1,510 aircraft in 2019 to 3,530 units in 2040.
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