American aerospace company Boeing believes that China’s airlines will triple the size of their fleet within twenty years as the world’s second largest economy sees continual growth in its travel industry.
Strong Chinese economic growth and an increased interested in travel from China’s growing middle class has made many in the aerospace engineering industry highly optimistic about sales growth in the East Asian country.
Boeing’s China sales forecast was released during its annual sales outlook. The company’s focus has increasingly shifted to East Asia as rising tourism spending amongst the Chinese middle classes makes it an attractive market for the company.
Despite recent predictions of slowed growth, China has maintained a 7.5 percent economic growth rate. While it remains below previous economic growth rates, a 7.5 annual growth rate puts China far ahead of Europe and North America.
Boeing believes that the East Asian country will purchase an additional 5,580 planes over the next twenty years, spending over £500 billion in the process. The new stock will triple the size of China’s air fleet and make it one of the world’s largest air travel markets.
The Chicago-based company noted that most of the planes used for domestic travel within China will be single-aisle aircraft. It also announced that sales of wide-body planes would likely increase to serve a growing demand for long-haul travel to and from China and other East Asian countries.
China’s massive air expansion makes it an attractive target market for aircraft firms such as Boeing. The company faces immense competition in China from French firm Airbus, which recently secured a £5.2 billion deal to deliver 60 planes to China.
Airbus also beat out Boeing on its home turf, securing a 40-plane deal worth over $6 billion with Delta Airlines.
