Falling oil prices are not deterring airlines from ordering new fuel-efficient aircraft, and there is little prospect of that changing even if prices stay low, argues the chief economist at Flightglobal's Ascend consultancy.
Delivering an upbeat outlook for the global airline industry, Peter Morris told the Airline Economics Growth Frontiers conference in Dublin today that carriers had enjoyed a "double windfall" of a falling fuel price and "the benefit of new toys" – a slew of more efficient narrowbody and widebody types coming onto the market.
Although Airbus and Boeing saw orders fall slightly in 2015 versus the previous year, that is mainly a result of "the first movers" having placed big orders earlier in the programmes rather than an indication of falling demand, says Morris.
"There is no strong evidence of major cancellations on the new stuff or people saying I'll run the old stuff forever," he says, noting that the commercial backlog remains at a record high. "I don't anticipate [that changing]," he adds.
Reiterating his conclusion about the health of the airline industry made at the same event last year, Morris says: "This is still as good as it gets."
Source: Cirium Dashboard
