Boeing forecasts demand for 33,500 new planes by 2030

Jun 16, 2011, 11:01 GMT

Paris - US aviation giant Boeing on Thursday forecast a massive increase in demand for new commercial aircraft over the next 20 years.

In its 2011 market outlook released in Paris, Boeing said it expected 33,500 new passenger and freight planes to be sold between 2011 and 2030, for around 4 trillion dollars.

Boeing had previously said it expected demand to reach 29,000 new aircraft for the period.

'The world market has recovered and is now expanding at a significant rate,' Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing in Boeing's commercial division, said ahead of the June 20-26 Paris Air Show.

'Not only is there a strong demand for air travel and new airplanes today, but the fundamental drivers of air travel - including economic growth, world trade and liberalization - all point to a healthy long-term demand,' he said.

Boeing expected passenger traffic to grow at 5.1 percent annually over the period and the world fleet to double by 2030.

The growth in demand would be driven by China, India and other emerging markets and would shift towards more single-aisle or regional planes, which were expected to make up 70 per cent of the global fleet by 2030, up from 62 per cent currently.