Despite pandemic pause, demand for new airplanes is expected to swell in next two decades, Boeing says

Despite the Covid pandemic wiping out two years of growth for the commercial airplane market, Boeing expects demand for the industry to swell over the next 20 years

Despite the Covid pandemic wiping out two years of growth for the commercial airplane market, Boeing expects demand for the industry to swell over the next 20 years, Qazet.az reports citing CNBC.

The company’s annual market outlook predicts the global fleet of commercial airplanes will climb from 25,900 in 2019 to 49,405 planes by 2040, with almost 90 percent those planes being new models that will enter service over the period.

In addition, Boeing is projecting the global aerospace industry, including defense and services, will reach $9 trillion over the next decade. That’s up $500 billion from the same forecast last year. It is also the largest amount the company has ever projected for the industry over a 10-year period.

“It is a pretty promising view and it tells us it’s time to start preparing for growth,” said Marc Allen, chief strategy officer for Boeing.

Driving it all will be an expected recovery in air travel, especially on international routes that have been devastated by the pandemic. International travel is down 74% from 2019, while domestic travel is down just 16%. By late 2023 or early 2024, Boeing expects global travel to return to 2019 levels.

“The industry essentially had two years of growth wiped out by the pandemic,” said Darren Hulst, vice president of commercial marketing for Boeing.

In its annual global market outlook released in 2019, long before the pandemic, Airbus had predicted that the world would need 47,680 jets by 2038.