India’s air travel is booming despite only a fraction of the population flying each year. Manufacturers will be looking to make lucrative deals from Monday at the Aero India exhibition.
In June, the International Air Transport Association will hold its annual general meetings in New Delhi, capital of the fifth largest economy in the world. This is another sign of India’s growing market power.
India, with its 1.4 billion inhabitants and its growing middle class, is the third largest market for air travel in the world after the United States and China.
“India is a rising star in global aerospace,”
said Remi Millard, Airbus India South Asia Chief.
“It’s the fastest-growing market for commercial aviation in the world, and it will continue to be so for the next twenty years.”
Boeing, Airbus’s rival, will also be participating in the five-day Aero India Show in Bengaluru organised by the defence department for global aero vendors. Boeing is equally enthusiastic.
Salil Gupte, Boeing India’s head of sales, told AFP that the Indian market was the most dynamic and exciting on the planet. India’s civil Aviation Ministry boasts about “soaring skies” and a sector that is “experiencing meteoric growth”.
Boeing’s estimates predict that this growth will lead to an increase of traffic in South Asia – primarily in India – of more than 7 per cent per year by 2043.
Maillard said that India’s per capita air travel is only 0.12, compared with 0.46 in China. He called this a “telling statement on the potential for the Indian aviation industry”.
The railways are still very popular, but travelling by train across a country that covers three-quarters of the European Union’s area is often slow and chaotic. Boeing estimates it would take 2% of 18 million daily train passengers to switch to flying, compared to 430,000 air passengers.
Since he came to power in 2014, Narendra Modi, a Hindu nationalist prime minister, has made the development and growth of the aviation sector a top priority. Modi has stated that he wants “to bring air travel to the people”, and in 2016 he began a program to increase air links between small cities and the country’s major cities.
Modi’s dream was to see a common man in slippers in the air. The aviation ministry reported his words. According to figures from the ministry, the number of airports in the last decade has more than doubled — from 74 to 157 by 2024. The government has promised to invest millions of dollars in order to increase airport numbers to 350 to 400 by 2047 – the centenary year of India’s Independence.
The government has also launched programmes to train 30,000 pilots, and at least that many mechanics in the next 20-year period. Airbus and Boeing, both of which are major partners in this initiative, place a strong emphasis on women’s empowerment.
The major manufacturers claim that the next leap for the airline sector in India is international. Airbus’s Maillard stated that “the kind of revolution that we have seen in India’s domestic market over the last few years, is now happening on the long-haul markets”, adding that the company was “leveraging India’s location advantage, demographic dividend, and economic growth”.
Gupte said Boeing expected more orders for large aircraft that can fly long distances. He believes 15 percent of India’s fleet will be made up of these aircraft within the next twenty years.
Boeing predicts that India will need at minimum 2,835 new planes by this deadline – three-quarters to meet market growth and the rest for replacement. Airbus delivered 766 commercial aircraft to 86 customers worldwide in 2204 — 72 of them to Indian carriers.
Boeing has not yet released its 2024 figures. The company was shaken by scandals involving the production quality of their aircraft and slowed by a strike. Aero India is a show that neither aircraft manufacturer wants to discuss. India’s orders are bursting. Air India, which had signed a huge contract for 470 aircraft in 2023 — 250 Airbus and 220 Boeing — last year ordered 100 additional Airbus planes.
IndiGo, India’s largest low-cost airline, is also not satisfied that it has placed the largest order volume in civil aviation history — 500 aircraft from Airbus by 2023. It ordered another 30 last year.
