American planemaker Boeing Commercial aircraft, part of a global duopoly alongside European company Airbus in the large commercial aircraft market believes that India will see a demand for over 2,380 new aircraft over the next two decades valued at over $330 billion at list prices. In addition, Indian aircraft operators are expected to spend over $440 billion on services including ground and flight services as well as maintenance and engineering much of which will be ploughed back into the local economy. While many of the new aircraft will replace older aircraft, there will also be some incremental additions which means the overall Indian civilian aircraft fleet is expected to quadruple in size to 2500 aircraft by 2038. Signs of the growth are evident in the recent 300 aircraft order by Indian aviation market-leader IndiGo although that went to Airbus.
Boeing spokesperson, Darren Hulst, Deputy Vice-President, Commercial Marketing, also said that he expected the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft, a significant number of which has been ordered by low-cost operator SpiceJet but suffered two devastating fatal crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia and was grounder globally to be back in the air in the first quarter of 2020. He also said that the American company is working with the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) to ensure that the additional checks required can be conducted quickly. The grounding of the aircraft was devastating to the schedule of SpiceJet which has several of the aircraft in airports across India, including New Delhi.
According to news reports from the United States, Boeing is doing an extremely through job to ensure the aircraft is safe to fly but will face challenges in securing consumer confidence in the brand.
Boeing also highlighted that development work on their proposed New Medium Aircraft (NMA) is also progressing, this will be a 200-250 seat plane that will serve the middle of the market and according to the company is ideally suited for short and medium range flights such as those between India and the Arabian peninsula as well as South-East Asia. However, there is aso talk of Boeing developing a potential ‘Future Small Aircraft’ (FSA) to replace the venerable 737 and effectively compete with the newly introduced Airbus A321XLR which is capable of carrying 244 passengers between India and Western Europe non-stop.