China’s going to be huge for global demand of air travel over the next two decades-that much Airbus and Boeing agree upon. However, the U.S. and European plane makers increasingly disagree over just how big the demand for new airplanes will be.
With its Global Market Forecast, Airbus said it expects China to need 9,440 new aircraft between now and 2042, 23% of its total expectation. That marked a major increase of 12% over its expectation a year ago, after it shifted key assumptions around the retirement demand and an increasing aversion to keeping secondhand aircraft inside the country.
Boeing, on the other hand, sees the market to be notably smaller than does Airbus. The U.S. Airframer, which formally unveiled its own annual Current Market Outlook on June 18, anticipates China needing 8,560 regional, single-aisle, widebody and freighter aircraft over the same 20-year period.
The dynamics in 2023 represent significantly different trajectories. Airbus is expanding its industrial footprint inside China, while Boeing is trying to thread the geopolitical needle of deteriorating U.S.-China relations.
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