According to the largest aircraft maker in the world, within the next 10-15 years, China will surpass the United States in terms of air travel market which will induce a significant increase in demand for crafts, said Boeing’s commercial marketing chief, Randy Tinseth.

The latest global industry report by Boeing claims that in the next 20 years, the industry will require about 42,700 aircrafts which is a 3% raise form its predictions for the same made last year.

Boeing valued the sales at $6.3 trillion (£4.8tn) at current rates.

This report which is very significant for the industry was unveiled at the Farnborough Airshow recently.

The report by the aircraft maker indicate a continuance of the near-decade long growth in aircraft sales in spite of headwinds such as trade tensions, increasing fuel prices, and interest rate hikes. An example of this is that the production lines at both Boeing and rival Airbus are occupied for the next few years already because of the demand for aircrafts.

At the show, while Airbus announced a provisional deal for 100 of its A320 jets with an unnamed airline, commitment to purchase of Boeing freight aircraft worth $11.8bn at list prices was announced by Russian airline Volga Dnepr.

Another deal worth $9.6bn at catalogue prices was also announced by Boeing with Air Lease Corp – the US aircraft leasing company, which is committed to purchase as many as 8 Boeing single-aisle and wide-body airplanes.

The growing importance of China to the aircraft industry was underscored in the upbeat sales forecast by Boeing. Last year, Chinese airlines had bought one in four of Boeing’s passenger aircrafts.

Randy Tinseth also said that rising e-commerce would also drive up the demand for cargo aircrafts where the single largest rise would be accounted for by Chinese traders and consumers.

There were however no comments made by Tinseth when asked whether the growth prospects of Boeing would be impaired by the escalating trade war. “We are going to focus on what we can control,” he said.

The company has also forecast a 5 per cent increase in its sale revenues in the next two decades and predicted that the demand for single-aisle aircraft, such as the Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 families would touch 31,360. These aircrafts are particularly liked by the low-cost airlines.

However, the company expects a drop in the sale of the larger, wide-bodied bracket by about 140 crafts within the same period at 8,070 aircraft. This is because the market is being taken over by the longer-range single-aisle jets, Tinseth said.

(Adapted from BBC.com)