LONDON – Via a press conference in Dubai today, Airbus has amended its forecasting for new passenger & freighter aircraft to 39,000 by 2040.
It is understood the reasoning behind this is down to the retirement of older aircraft accelerating, with demand progressively more driven by replacement.
Such support of the industry’s decarbonization objectives is also causing faster retirements as well.
The demand breakdown is as follows:
- 29,700 Small aircraft (A220, A320 Families)
- 5,300 Medium aircraft (A321XLR, A330neo)
- 4,000 Large (A350).
- 2,440 Cargo
It is understood that these requirements, will trigger an employment requirement of 550,000 new pilots and over 710,000 highly skilled technicians over 20 years.
Commenting on the news was Airbus’ Chief Commercial Officer and Head of Airbus International, Christian Scherer, who talked a little more about these requirements:
“As economies and air transport mature, we see demand increasingly driven by replacement rather than growth. Replacement is today’s most significant driver for decarbonization. “
“The world is expecting more sustainable flying and this will be made possible in the short-term by the introduction of most modern airplanes.”
“Powering these new, efficient aircraft with Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF) is the next big lever.”
“We pride ourselves that all our aircraft – the A220, A320neo Family, the A330neo, and the A350 – are already certified to fly with a blend of 50% SAF, set to rise to 100% by 2030 – before making ZEROe our next reality from 2035 onwards.”
As we have all expected, the demand for larger aircraft has declined, especially with the presence of the A321XLR and the potential Boeing NMA sometime in the future.
Airlines are wanting cheaper and more effective aircraft, and have wanted so for many years.
With that forecast now in mind, it will be interesting to see what Airbus now has up its sleeve for the beginning of the trade week in DAS.
