Airbus sees Asia demand driving post-Covid recovery for big jets

Airbus SE expects Asia-Pacific airlines’ need for widebody aircraft to drive a post-pandemic recovery in demand for the larger jets as the region starts to open up, according to a top executive.

The surge in demand isn’t just to replace jets like ones from Airbus’s older A330-family, but also for fleet expansion, Anand Stanley, president of Asia Pacific for the European planemaker, said in an interview on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the Association of Asia Pacific Airlines in Bangkok on Thursday. 

Asia has been slower than the rest of the world to open up its borders following the pandemic, with China still largely closed to outsiders. However, popular business and tourist destinations including Singapore and Thailand have reopened, while strong domestic markets like India were even faster to recover. 

“There is incremental growth. So on top of fleet renewals, which is a very conservative scenario, you have to also meet the incremental growth numbers, given the constraints that you’re seeing today in terms of not enough pilots, not enough capacity to meet the demand,” Stanley said. “I think there’s fundamental demand, there is fundamental structural growth that will drive the demand, not a short-term speculative.”

Airbus expects passenger traffic in the region to jump by 5.1% a year in the 20 years to 2041, Stanley said. Freighter traffic is expected to rise by 4.1% annually.