Boeing: Asia will be No. 1 market; China's rapid growth to lead jet-sales shift

Soaring aircraft sales in China will help the Asia-Pacific region eclipse North America as the world's largest airplane market during the next 20 years, Boeing Co. predicted in its annual market forecast released Wednesday.

Boeing predicts that manufacturers will deliver 28,600 airplanes worth $2.8 trillion by 2026, about 5 percent more than the 27,210 aircraft worth $2.6 trillion that it predicted in last year's 20-year outlook.

The aerospace firm boosted its prediction to include aircraft sales in Russia, omitted from previous forecasts. The increase was due, in part, to anticipation that trade liberalization will spur China's economy.

Indeed, Boeing sees the locus of the aviation market shifting east in the coming decades from North America, the traditional center, to Pacific Rim nations such as China.

By 2026, the Asia-Pacific region "will clearly be the largest aviation market in the world," said Randy Tinseth, vice president for marketing with Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

China's domestic air travel capacity, currently a fraction of North America's, will grow at an 8.1 percent annual clip during the next two decades, as that nation emerges as an aviation power, Boeing predicted.

By contrast, North America's capacity will increase at a far slower annual rate, 3.4 percent, as carriers struggle to make money in the world's most mature and most competitive market. The Chicago-based aerospace manufacturer doesn't see its home market recovering until well into the next decade.

As they struggled to survive following the Sept. 11 attacks, most U.S. carriers canceled or deferred deliveries of new aircraft, while wringing more flight time out of their aging fleets.

Now they risk falling behind their overseas counterparts, such as Singapore Airlines and Emirates Airline, which are investing heavily in the new generation of airplanes, analysts say. Aircraft such as Boeing's 787 Dreamliner and Airbus' A380 superjumbo jet will be more fuel-efficient, roomier and can fly for longer ranges than the 1980s- and 1990s-vintage planes that the U.S. carriers fly on lucrative overseas routes.

What's more, production lines for the most popular planes, such as the Dreamliner and larger 777, are sold out for years to come.

If U.S. carriers don't start placing large orders soon, then by 2015 they will have nearly 1,000 planes in their fleets that are 25 years old or older, said Tinseth.

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