India Will Need Over 2,500 New Aircraft By 2042, Says Boeing

Darren Hulst, Boeing VP, said that to meet the rapidly increasing passenger and cargo demands, Indian carriers are expected to quadruple the size of their existing fleets in next two decades

India is the only significant economy and large market in Asia that was able to return to pre-pandemic levels both domestically and internationally with regard to demand, said Boeing.

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India will need more than 2,500 new aircraft deliveries by 2042, said Darren Hulst, Boeing vice-president (VP) of commercial marketing, on Friday. He said this expected demand is led by high traffic growth, which India has been experiencing in recent times.

Hulst emphasised that to meet the rapidly increasing passenger and cargo demands, South Asian carriers are expected to quadruple the size of their existing fleets over the next two decades. In addition, they will be required to have more than 2,705 new aeroplanes to address growth and fleet replacement in the future, he said during a press conference, reported the news agency PTI.

India will need more than 92 per cent of  2,705 or over 2,500 aircraft by 2042. These numbers are based on the forecast given in the middle of the last year, he added. "We project that carriers here (South Asia including India) will need more than 2,700 aircraft deliveries by the year 2042," Hulst said; adding a similar composition of the fleet with more than 2,300 single aisles, nearly 400 wide-body aircraft for the long haul would be needed. 

According to Boeing, India is the only significant economy and large market in Asia that was able to return to pre-pandemic levels both domestically and internationally with regard to demand. This development reflects how significant air travel is in the marketplace and the strength of the Indian economy; it also shows how connected a traveller is to continued growth, he further said.

Hulst added that there is an expectation that the India cargo fleet will go up to 80 aeroplanes over the next 20 years as opposed to the current 15 freighter aircraft. He noted that the focus of the company is not on numbers but on the quality of the aircraft without compromising on the scheduled delivery time committed to the buyer. There would be an additional layer of scrutiny, he added.