Indian carriers will require 1,450 new aircraft worth $175billion to cope with the growth in passenger traffic over the next 20 years,global aircraft manufacturer Boeing said Tuesday.
"Over 60 million passengers will fly within India thisyear. Over the next 20 years, India is projected to have the highest passengertraffic growth in the world," said Dinesh Keskar, senior vice president ofsales, Asia Pacific and India, Boeing Commercial Aircraft, releasing thecompany's current market outlook.
"The forecast passenger growth is expected to be drivenby economic prosperity, higher discretionary incomes and businessprogress."
And airlines in the country will require 1,450 new aircraftworth $175 billion to service the traffic growth.
According to Keskar, the biggest demand from the airlines inIndia will be for single-aisle aircraft, which Boeing estimates to be around1,201 units at a cost of $114 billion.
Boeing also projected a demand for 234 twin-aisle aircraftfrom 2012 to 2031 worth $61 billion, followed by a demand for 15 regional jetsworth $0.5 billion.
Keskar further said that airlines in India are improvingtheir financial performance due to increased yield and capacity management.However, a slowdown in the economy, high fuel prices and weak rupee couldaffect the margins.
"Their is a slight more supply than demand. But this isnot a matter of major concern as the airlines have been improving theirperformance by better capacity management," Keskar said.
Globally, the aircraft manufacturer projected sales of34,000 airplanes worth $4.5 trillion in the next 20 years. The company alsoforecast an annual traffic growth of 5.00 percent over the next 20 years and bythat time the world's commercial aviation fleet will double.
Meanwhile, European aircraft manufacturer Airbus in itslatest global market forecast (GMF) said that their will be a need for some28,200 passenger and freighter aircraft between 2012 and 2031 worth nearly $4.00trillion.
"Aside from growth in international traffic, by 2031four of the world's biggest traffic flows will all be domestic - US, China,Intra-Western Europe and India, and these account for a third of worldtraffic," says John Leahy, chief operating officer, customers, Airbus.
The report predicted that in value of orders terms, Indiawill be the fourth largest market after China, US and UAE.
"By 2031 the world's passenger fleet will have expandedby 110 percent from slightly over 15,550 today to over 32,550. In the sameperiod, the world's freighter fleet will almost double from 1,600 to 3,000aircraft," the report said.
The report added that traffic will grow at an average annualrate of 4.7 percent in the next 20 years, during which some 10,350 aircraftwill be replaced by new efficient models.