Boeing has seen the future of air travel in Australia, New Zealand and the (other) South Pacific islands and it is big, very big, but will gain pace slowly in the near future.
Its Commercial Airplanes Vice President of Marketing, Randy Tinseth said “data indicates that the economic downturn has reached bottom and recovery has begun.
“Global recovery will be a long, slow process, and airlines will continue to adapt to the realities of the market.”
However between now and 2028 Boeing forecasts that the 400 medium to large sized airliners in service in this corner of Oceania will grow to a total of 850, after the delivery of 670 new jets worth about $US 90 billion is partially offset by fleet retirements.
Tinseth says Boeing’s current commercial market outlook to 2008 forecasts global air travel growth will average 4.9% over the period, slightly outperformed by this region at 5.1% per annum.
This graph (above) captures some the momentous changes in Australian fleets since 2000. It is also a reminder that Boeing, like Airbus, has a very good record for forecasting the big picture for demand, yet can never see the ambushes or shocks of history.
And here is the flight shy object of everyone’s attention (below). The beautiful, elusive, unproven, promising, frustrating, tantalising Dreamliner. It’s filed, for better or worse, in the Plane Talking archives of assorted claims and promises.
