As if to illustrate his point precisely, Randy Baseler, Boeing’s vice-president marketing, began his market overview at yesterday’s industry briefing just as news of Emirates’ order for 42 Boeing 777 airliners was sinking in.
Baseler began his presentation by explaining why Boeing believes that current trends in airliner purchasing are driven by three major factors: Liberalisation of the regulations governing the industry; increased aircraft capability; and changing airline strategies.
These factors, says Baseler, mean that airlines are looking at increased frequency and additional city pairings as the solution to deal with the predicted increase in passenger numbers.
“If you take a look at Airbus’ website,” he says, “you’ll see that they have a contrary view, believing that the airlines will prefer size over frequency, with little or no increase in the number of city pairings, meaning that the Airbus A380 makes sense.”
Over the next 20 years, he says, we’ll see who was right.
Source: Flight Daily News
