MIKE MARTIN
Airline traffic levels should return to pre-11 September levels by the end of 2002, but total airline revenues may take longer to recover as yields are under pressure, Randy Baseler, vice-president of marketing, Boeing Commercial Airplanes said at the show yesterday.
The historic link between economic growth and growth in revenue passenger kilometres was broken in the aftermath of 11 September but will be restored and "traffic growth will rebound to the long-term trend", said Baseler.
"The events of 11 September had a dramatic impact on our world and on our industry," he said. "But the industry was already evolving before that point, and the elements changing our industry were already in place."
Accelerated
The events of 11 September only accelerated those processes, he added.
He said the effects of 11 September were similar to those surrounding the Gulf War in the early 1990s: traffic decline and redeployment of aircraft to reduce losses.
"But in each case, with renewed economic activity, traffic growth returned, load factors increased and airlines continued to develop their networks by introducing more frequencies and non-stop flights."
The world economic outlook is steadily improving, he said, with world growth forecasts for this year up from 1.4% to 1.9%.
In the United States, domestic airline traffic is recovering, 7% down as against 30% down immediately after 11 September. Europe is also recovering, particularly in intra-Europe and Europe to Asia traffic. However, both the USA and Europe are suffering with continued poor demand on North Atlantic routes.
"Asia-Pacific offers an encouraging story," said Baseler. "Asia-Pacific international traffic was up in April and early indicators are that May and June will continue the trend of improvement."
Turning to the Boeing 2002 current market outlook, he said that he believes worldwide economic growth will average 2.9% a year in the period 2002-2021 and that passenger traffic will grow by an average 4.9% a year in the same period. Cargo will grow by 6.4% a year, he said.
That translates into a need for 17,200 new aircraft over the period to meet growth needs, and a further 6,700 aircraft to replace retired aircraft. Over that period, the world fleet will grow from 15,271 aircraft to about 32,500.
Source: Flight Daily News
