Boeing predicts 15% higher plane purchase by India

Pointing out that India’s potential for air travel growth – domestically and internationally – is among the greatest in the world, Boeing has said that Indian carriers will need 1,150 aircraft by 2030.

Boeing Dreamliner cockpit photo

This growth will see almost $130 million being pumped into the sector. This represents more than four percent of Boeing’s worldwide forecast for commercial airplanes.

This forecast stemmed from an assessment of factors like economic growth in the country, rise in the load factor in air travel and the rising profitability of air carriers. According to them the tenacity and consistency that is being displayed in Indian aviation use is expected to continue to unfold over a long period of time. Some time earlier Boeing had said that India would spend $100 million to buy a thousand airplanes by 2010. But the staggering feedback and data from the aviation industry has made them hike their earlier projections by 15%.

The statement from Boeing said that there was a strong likelihood of there being a record 50 million passengers in 2010, if the trend continued as it is going now. According to reports, in 2009 Indian carriers flew 44 million passengers – which is a record to date. The president of Boeing India said that the Indian market has the fastest recovery and growth rate – and cited the example of Jet Airways, which saw a 35% increase in passenger growth as well as load factor and yields. And this was at a time when recession had hit the aviation industry hard.

When the global financial meltdown occurred, the Indian aviation industry suffered badly, but wit the economic growth steadily picking up, aviation numbers started picking up by the latter half of 2009.

This positive projection is seen as a direct result of the increasingly positive projection for India’s long term economic growth. According to the Indian governments projection, the country is set to have its economy grow by 8.5%  this year, with the possibility of reaching a two digit number as soon as 2013.

The company will be delivering its next generation aircraft the 787 Dreamliner to Air India in the second quarter of 2011 said sources.