Airbus sees Chinese carriers continuing to upgauge their fleets as domestic and international demand soars.
"There is a need for larger aircraft in China," said Airbus Group China chairman Laurence Barron at the ISTAT Asia conference in Singapore.
"An airline that ordered A319s in the past now orders A320s. Similarly, an airline that previously ordered A320s now orders A321s."
Demand is now more in the 140-240-seat segment than in the 140-160-seat segment in which it was focused in the past, notes Barron.
Growth in domestic China reached 10.1% last year as 400 million passenger flew, figures from the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) show.
CAAC expects 1.5 billion passengers in China by 2033, and Barron predicts that China will overtake the USA as the number-one domestic market within the next 10 years.
In its Global Market Forecast, Airbus foresees the average annual growth rate for the domestic Chinese market being 7.1% in the next 20 years but growing even faster from 2014 to 2023, at an 8.3% annual average. China's domestic market will remain the largest flow, accounting for 11.9% of world traffic in terms of revenue passenger-kilometres, predicts Airbus, while the average annual growth rate for international traffic in and out of China will reach 8.1%.
The airframer is forecasting that China will need around 5,300 new passenger aircraft and freighters in the period 2014-2033. Of those, 3,500 will be narrowbodies. Another 1,500 will be widebodies and over 300 will be in the very large aircraft segment.
Baron says there are 0.25 trips per capita today but by 2033 China will equal Europe with 0.95 trips a year.
Airbus's in-service fleet in Greater China totalled more than 1,130 aircraft at the end of the first quarter of 2015. Those included 980 Airbus A320-family aircraft, he says.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
