Boeing Co said on Tuesday that Chinese airlines are predicted to purchase 6,810 airplanes valued at $1.025 trillion in the next two decades, with China's strong growth in domestic and overseas travel and a rising middle-class.
The plane manufacturer lifted its forecast of China, and said China is likely to become the first country with an aviation market that exceeded a trillion dollars.
Among the new deliveries, Boeing predicts China will need 5,110 new single-aisle airplanes through 2035, accounting for 75 percent of the total, and China's wide-body fleet is to triple in size over the next two decades.
"As China transitions to a more consumer-based economy, aviation will play a key role in its economic development," said Randy Tinseth, vice president of marketing at Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
"Because travel and transportation are key services, we expect to see passenger traffic grow 6.4 percent annually in China over the next 20 years."
Meanwhile, low-cost carriers and full-service airlines have been adding airplanes and expanding new point-to-point services between smaller cities to cater for both leisure and business travel demand from a rising middle class in China and throughout Asia.
Besides, China became the most dynamic market for international flights. In the last five years, the number of direct international flights to and from China saw a surge of 150 percent. Direct flights between second-tier Chinese cities and overseas cities have been the main driving force of the growth.
Tinseth said the continuing expansion of China's middle class, coupled with new relaxed visa policies and a wide range of wide body airplanes with new technologies, capabilities and efficiencies, gives Boeing sufficient reason to expect a very bright future for China's long-haul market.
