70% of total world deliveries
By 2026 the world’s major airlines will need 20,544 new and recycled single-aisle passenger aircraft to accommodate traffic growth and renew their fleets. Of these, 3,924 aircraft will be replaced by their current operator and recycled back into the fleet to continue service with another airline. Therefore, there will be demand for deliveries of some 16,620 new, more efficient aircraft.
The demand for single-aisle aircraft will be largely focused on North America. Deliveries to Asia-Pacific, which has a growing low-cost presence and emerging markets, will be roughly comparable to Europe. Latin America, the Middle East and Africa will take a significant 14% of deliveries between them.
By 2026, the active fleet of 21,164 single-aisles will be operating out of 1,846 airports, linking 13,200 airport pairs. Unsurprisingly operations will be largely focused on domestic US routes. In fact, of the top ten airports, measured by aircraft utilisation, only three (London Heathrow, Roissy-Charles-de-Gaulle and Schiphol), will not be in the US. Some 10% of the world’s single-aisle fleet is forecast to be operating out of those ten airports.
Overall, the use of single-aisles will actually be relatively dispersed when compared with the total world fleet. Flights from the top 25 airports, led by Atlanta and Chicago O’Hare, will absorb 20% of the fleet’s productive capacity.
Single-aisle aircraft will be overwhelmingly flown on short flights and by 2026, 45% of them will be used on flights of 1,100 kilometres/600 nautical miles or less, which is the equivalent of Paris to Rome or Hong Kong to Manila.
Just over a third of the demand for single-aisles will come from the replacement of older less eco-efficient aircraft in the fleet. About 85% of the replaced aircraft will concern the network airlines’ fleet. Over the next 20 years, existing LCCs will represent as much as 37% of the demand for growth, requiring a total of 4,800, or 29%, of the world’s new single-aisle aircraft. Asia-Pacific LCCs are expected to develop their single-aisle fleets quickly from a relatively low base of 247 today, to about 1,250 by 2026.
With the shift to larger regional aircraft, a significant portion of deliveries is expected to be in the bigger categories, particularly the 70 to 85-seat category. They could also possibly include the introduction of larger turbo-prop aircraft for the shorter range operations. Overlap between mainline jets and regional jets with around 100 seats is expected to continue. However, the spread of demand, either upward or downward for a particular airline, and the desire for commonality benefits will both help define aircraft demand in this sector. Meanwhile, above 100 seats, demand remains centred around the 150-seat segment, which is currently characterised by the extremely successful A320 Family.
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