Posted May 21, 2010 11:53 AM
By Ben Colclough
China - What does the future hold?
What will be the composition of the global airline fleet in 2020? That's the question that Chris Seymour, Head of Market Analysis, answers in his Global Fleet Forecaster. The 2010 ten year forecast has just been made available, and whilst this covers all regions and aircraft classes, I thought I'd share some of Chris's insight into fleet developments for possibly the most talked about region for aerospace - China.
The rapid expansion of the Chinese economy and their increasing share of global manufacturing, allied to increasing wealth amongst the 1.3 billion population and a growing tourism business, has resulted in the Chinese fleet expanding at ever higher growth rates. The fleet has more than tripled in the past 10 years and 120 jets (10%) were added in the past year alone.
The Chinese economy, which was suffering from a fall-off in orders for manufactured goods from the West, is seeing signs of revival. Airlines were losing money and the Government has acted to force some mergers and restrict startups. These are short term difficulties but will not impair long term aviation growth.
China is one of the key growth markets for the medium/long term and the forecast fleet growth rate is over 7.5% over ten years. In order to cope with the traffic growth led by an enlarged middle class, the increasing international routes and up to 90 new domestic airports being built or planned, the jet fleet is forecast to grow from some 1,300 today to some 2,720 in 10 years. China will account for 15% of global deliveries. From an 8% share of the jet fleet, China will rise to 11% over 10 years.
Passenger narrowbodies today make up 82% of the Chinese fleet, reflecting the large domestic networks which are centred around the Golden Triangle of Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou. This fleet of almost 1,100 will expand by over 90% over ten years to 2,100, some of them assembled and built in China (A320s and C919s) The average size will stay around 146 seats. Of the expected 1,400 deliveries, 65% will be for expansion purposes, the remainder mainly replacing earlier MD-80, 757 and 737 Classic fleets and older A320s and 737-NGs.
The locally built C919 will enter service in 2016 on current plans and will join the A320 and 737 in meeting the large domestic demand.
The widebody fleet, which has expanded more slowly, will see more rapid growth in the next 10 years and almost triple to over 400, increasing their fleet share to 15%. As the international networks expand, more European and American cities will be linked to China by the longer range types like 777s, A350s and 787s. The latter, together with A330s will also be the core of intra Asian expansion and domestic trunk routes. Chinese outbound tourism is also increasing, as travel restrictions are lifted, which will spur long haul traffic.
China has been relatively slow to develop a network of regional feeders, with only around 100 aircraft, mostly 30-50 seaters and some 100 seaters currently used. However, the orders by Hainan for the Embraer 190s, are seeing the start of major expansion. The new Chinese built ARJ programme will begin deliveries in 2010 and at least 160 are forecast for the next 10 year period, growing the RJ fleet to 240, as there are many new small/medium airports being built for which RJs are ideal.
As China is such a major manufacturing centre, it has strong outbound cargo and the jet freighter fleet of a modest 69 today is forecast to rise to 230 over 10 years (slower than expected growth in the first five years), as local airlines take a much bigger share of the market. Some 50 new deliveries will be focussed on the 777 and A330, whilst 130 conversions will include some 767s, starting to serve intra Asian markets, increasing numbers of converted 757s and 737 Classics will be used domestically and 747-400s for long haul markets.
Leave a comment