High order backlogs remain
Airlines have powerful incentives to continue introducing new airplanes, and manufacturers' order backlogs are holding up well to the dual challenges of recession and short-term financing needs. New airplanes bring benefits on many levels. Their efficiency is a natural hedge against volatile jet fuel prices. Their advanced passenger amenities bring competitive advantage. And their lower fuel consumption contributes toward continually improving airplane environmental performance.
The world's overall airplane order backlog remains near historic highs in part due to its diversity in terms of geographic distribution and types of airlines represented. In addition, forthcoming deliveries of revolutionary new airplane types such as the 787 will bring much needed step-change benefits compared to the types they replace.
Saving airplanes
New airplanes bring a further strong benefit: improved productivity. The average passenger airplane of the future fleet will carry nearly 40 percent more traffic than the average airplane today. This improved productivity comes from airplanes with better operational efficiency, reduced maintenance requirements, shorter turnaround times and better payload-range performance.
Better productivity brings an important environmental benefit: it saves airplanes. Without such improvement, around 12,000 additional passenger airplanes would be needed to carry expected levels of traffic. And introducing the world's new fleet of airplanes means that improvement is continual. In fact, in 20 years' time, 83 percent of the fleet in service will be airplanes that have been delivered new since 2008.
Airplane size trends
Regional jet markets have been strongly affected by fuel price volatility, labor costs and traffic increases. Airlines are moving to use larger regional jets and transition service into 90+ seat airplanes, which are included in our forecast for single-aisle airplanes.
Boeing's business is largely focused on the two most numerous airplane market sectors: single-aisle and twin-aisle airplanes. These are the two most robust market sectors because of passenger preference for frequent, direct services at the most affordable fares.
Large airplanes are well suited to very high volume, stable trunk routes, which constitute an important but not expanding proportion of the market. Demand for the largest airplanes is mostly replacement demand. Our forecast for large airplanes maintains previously expected levels of demand for airplanes currently offered.
