FARNBOROUGH, England (Reuters) - Boeing Co (BA.N) raised its rolling 20-year industry forecast for passenger and cargo aircraft by three percent on Tuesday, but shaved its projections for wide-body as well as regional jets, as its battle with Airbus intensifies in smaller planes.
The world’s largest planemaker said at the Farnborough Airshow it expected 42,700 industry deliveries over the next two decades, up from its estimate of 41,030 a year ago.
That would be worth $6.3 trillion at list prices versus last-year’s $6.1 trillion prediction.
Dominating that tally is a five percent increase in the forecast for single-aisle aircraft, such as the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 families, underpinned by a prediction for average global traffic growth of 4.7 percent, unchanged from last year.
The Chicago-based planemaker now sees 31,360 deliveries in the medium-haul, single-aisle category, which is the cash cow of the world’s two largest planemakers and popular with low-cost airlines, Boeing said at the air show south west of London.
Air travel has been on a sharp uptrend fueled by emerging economies, and China looks set to overtake the United States as the world’s biggest domestic air travel market in 10-15 years, Boeing’s vice-president of commercial marketing Randy Tinseth told a press briefing.
The growth of China’s domestic market, and its insatiable demand for aircraft made by both Boeing and Europe’s Airbus (AIR.PA), underscores Boeing’s risks should the escalating trade dispute between Washington and Beijing become a full-blown trade war.
Tinseth refused to be drawn into commenting on U.S. trade policy, saying: “We are going to focus on what we can
