Aviation industry ready for take-off again

Aviation is attempting to remain bullish about future prospects as the credit crisis and the effects of the huge jump in the price of fuel bite deeper.
Last week's Farnborough Air Show, the industry's premier showcase, may have lacked the debut of an eye-catching new airliner but total orders and options unveiled by Boeing and Airbus, the two commercial aviation giants, topped $50bn (£ 25bn), almost all from one airline, Etihad, the Abu Dhabi based carrier with ambitions to match the achievements of Emirates, its Dubai-based neighbour.
Further down the aircraft food chain, Rolls-Royce announced £ 4.6bn worth of new aero-engine orders, well down on the Paris total of £ 7.5bn but well above the combined tally of £ 3bn from rivals General Electric and Pratt & Whitney.
There is a tradition of using Farnborough and its ''sister'' air shows as a platform to demonstrate vitality in order book terms. This year would have been a flop but for Etihad with orders for 205 planes costing $43bn at list prices.
Airbus claimed business worth $40bn of the $50bn package but both the European planemaker and Boeing have healthy order books with enough business to keep production and assembly lines working almost flat out for six years. Farnborough also saw the arrival of competition at the bottom end of the market for the two majors with Canada's Bombardier pushing the CSeries, a 110-130 seater rival for the A320 and Boeing's 737 on to the runway with Lufthansa as a first customer.
Boeing produced the most bullish and detailed projections. Its planners estimate that by 2027 there should be a market for 29,400 new aircraft to replace older planes and accommodate the growth of air travel. The order flow and traffic growth allied with retirement will create the need for another 360,000 pilots, equivalent to an extra 18,000 a year while at ground level a further 480,000 jobs should be provided for servicing and maintaining the new fleets.
In Europe, pilot numbers could grow from 40,000 to 70,000 and in North America from 60,000 to 98,000 but the fast-growing economies in the Far East could see a fourfold increase. The number of pilots in China is projected to reach almost 50,000 by 2027 and 15,500 in India.
The Middle East, where Emirates and Etihad are competing to become the biggest in the region, will be instrumental in fuelling demand for 17,500 pilots, again a fourfold increase on current levels. Etihad's shopping list at Farnborough was one of the biggest in commercial aviation history, comprising 100 firm orders and options for another 105.
25/07/08 Roland Gribben/Telegraph.co.uk, United Kingdom

To Read the News in full at Source, Click the Headline

Categories: Foreign Jul 2008, Indian Aviation- In General Jul 2008