Chris Tarry, chief executive of consultancy CTaira, is the latest analyst to state that airlines and lessors have over-ordered aircraft.
Addressing a financier community at the Geneva Forum Aircraft Finance and Commercial Aviation, Tarry said the current narrowbody aircraft backlog was 2,000 too many. "We are at a turning point in the European and US markets. Too much capacity is likely to enter the short-haul markets in Europe in particular," he says.
"The backlog of narrowbody aircraft is a concern and we will need to adjust this over the next three years," he adds.
"The current market is GDP [gross domestic product]-dependent," says Tarry. "In Europe the projected rate of GDP will be falling in 2008 but not as much as in the 2002/03 period," he predicts.
Tarry says that "the real problem is about to occur now in Europe", and he expects the year 2008 to be the "year of realisation", adding that 2009 will be "the year of change".
Source: Flight International
