Boeing thinks that Indian Airlines’ capacity will go up by 25% over the course of the next year.
NEW DELHI: A Boeing official says that the company expects Indian airlines to increase their capacity by at least 25% over the next year. This is because demand is recovering quickly in the world’s fastest-growing major market.Dave Schulte, who is in charge of regional marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, told reporters, “We expect airlines to quickly recover and add 25% or more annual seats back into the market.”
He said that Boeing expects India’s annual capacity to grow by 7% over the long term, which is faster than other top high-growth markets.
Low-cost airlines (LCCs) like IndiGo, SpiceJet, GoFirst, and AirAsia India rule the skies of India. Most of these airlines use Airbus narrowbody planes.
Boeing controls India’s widebody market, but ticket wars and high costs have caused full-service airlines to fail, including Kingfisher.Airlines in 2012 and Jet Airways in 2019, making LCCs and Airbus even more dominant.
But India’s newest low-cost airline, Akasa Air, and the new owners of Air India and Jet Airways, Tata & Sons and the Jalan-Kalrock consortium, give the U.S. planemaker hope that it can regain market dominance in India as it looks for more plane orders.
Related: Boeing, Northrop will join the White House-backed advanced manufacturing program.
Akasa has 72 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft on order.
SpiceJet, which is Boeing’s biggest customer in India, said on Wednesday that it plans to add more MAX aircraft to its fleet. This is despite having trouble making regular payments to suppliers and lessors, which has led some of them to deregister and take back jets.
The loss-making airline has ordered 155 MAX jets, but it has been slow to add them to its fleet. This is true even though the country’s aviation regulator gave the aircraft permission to fly again last year, after a global ban was put in place after two fatal crashes.
