2023-06-10 07:50:48
Aurélien Fleurot, edited by Yanis Darras
After a period of slack due to Covid-19, the air sector is finally returning to its pre-crisis level. And the prospects are excellent, with companies estimating that traffic should triple by 2050. But environmental and land limits exist.
The airline sector is rubbing its hands. 2023 will be the year of a return to pre-health crisis levels. This is what the International Air Transport Association provides, which held its annual summit this week in Istanbul, Turkey and which therefore revised the objectives upwards for this year.
Emerging countries drive demand
The 300 companies combined expect to carry more than 4 billion passengers, only 4% less than before the pandemic. And the longer-term forecasts are looking good. While there is already just over one flight per second in the world, air traffic is expected to double in 2037 and even triple by 2050.
So are we heading towards a traffic jam in the air? “Not at all” replies Arnaud Aymé, transport expert at Sia Partners, for whom the growth of the air sector will take place in areas where there is still a lot of margin. “This is what we are seeing today with airlines like those in Turkey and India, which are placing large orders for new aircraft,” he explains. “These are typically countries with a fairly large population and above all a middle class which is growing with the growth of world GDP”, he continues at the microphone of Europe 1.
Limits to this growth
Technological innovations should also make it possible to save time on the landing and take-off phases and therefore to increase traffic without cluttering the sky. On the other hand, there are several limits to the endless increase in traffic. First, in dense urban areas, it will be difficult to enlarge airports and therefore to greatly increase rotations. Especially since the nuisances of these infrastructures regularly cause the dissatisfaction of the local residents, who do not want to hear regarding an increase in traffic.
It is also difficult to produce as much biofuel as the airlines would like, which will have to wait to grow their fleet with more efficient aircraft compatible with these new fuels for the sector. Industry giants Airbus and Boeing already have well-filled order books.
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