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European aircraft maker Airbus said on Monday that airlines in India will play an important role for growth in sales of single-aisle aircraft in the Asia-Pacific region.
The demand for single-aisle aircraft is expected to accelerate with the growth of low-cost carriers and their plans of adding secondary short-haul routes, said Airbus in a statement.
IndiGo, the New Delhi-based low-cost carrier, reached a preliminary agreement in January to buy 180 A320s from Airbus in the industry's largest order of new planes. The order, along with Air Asia's plans to purchase 175 Airbus A320s, is expected to be a significant contributor to Airbus' single-aisle aircraft sales.
Air Asia and Airbus are currently in negotiations over the purchase. Airbus expects an overall requirement for some 5,200 new aircraft in the smaller single-aisle 100-210 seat category from the region.
Bullish on Asia-pacific
The European manufacturer was bullish about the Asia-Pacific region on the whole and said that airlines in the region are expected to take delivery of 8,560 new aircraft over the next 20 years.
This would make the region the largest market in the world, overtaking North America and Europe. The aircraft sales over the next 20 years have been valued at $1.2 trillion, representing 33 per cent of new aircraft deliveries worldwide, said the company.
However, despite the projection for growth in the single-aisle category, Asia-Pacific continues to be primarily a wide-body aircraft market for Airbus. Airbus predicts that the region will continue to drive demand for larger aircraft types as well, reflecting the concentration of populations in the region around the main urban centres and the need for more seats between fast-growing mega-cities.
As a result, it expects that carriers in the region will acquire around 3,360 new wide-body aircraft over the next two decades. This represents 40 per cent of all wide-body deliveries worldwide and includes close to 780 very large aircraft such as the A380 and around 2,580 twin-aisle wide-bodies such as the A330 and new A350 XWB.
Currently, there are 1,700 Airbus aircraft in service in the region with more than 70 operators across the region. A further 1,100 aircraft are on order with customers for future delivery representing 32 per cent of the company's total backlog.
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