Recent developments in civil aircraft market: will they effect industry forecasts?

Events shaping the future of the global civil aircraft market continue to unfold. Teal Group has identified a list of newsworthy developments over the last couple of months that could shape short- and long-term demand for civil aircraft and we explain why they are important, or not.

Airbus A350 is facing criticism about the A350 weakness vis-à-vis the 787: We’ve expected the A350-900 to continue to trail the 787 (all variants), but we don’t see that as existential. We expect the A330neo will take up some of the slack. The -1000 is probably in a weaker position relative to the 777X although commonality with a family of aircraft will provide some lift.

Airbus Helicopters H175 production increase: First reported in February, no evidence that this has happened yet. No change to our forecast.

Boeing quietly stretched the 777-8X: No surprise since it now is the same as the 777-XF. Unlikely to change its dismal prospects though.

Boeing 737MAXs could be headed to China: Although good news, we don’t think this changes much.

Blended Wing Body: Lots of buzz after DoD awarded JetZero some of the money needed to build a prototype, but the rest will have to come from somewhere else. Nothing is likely to be produced within our 10-year forecast time frame. We will monitor but no new forecast for now.

Dassault Falcon 6X is certified: Hooray! Finally! We upped our near term delivery forecast slightly. It could go higher.

Elfy gets Norwegian grant to build a 19-seat electric aircraft prototype: $8 million isn’t enough and 2025 is too optimistic. No change to our forecast.

Embraer E195-E2 certified by China: But there aren’t any customers yet. No change in forecast.

Honda Launches 2600 light jet: We’ve added a line for the aircraft to our Business Jet forecast, but it won’t deliver until 2028 (at best) and will face some pretty hefty competition. Very minor impact on our forecast.

Russia Reduces its involvement in CR929: We don’t have much hope for a Sino/Russo widebody, so we don’t think this makes any difference.

Yakovlev is taking over the Sukhoi SSJ-100 and Irkut MS-21 programs: Those have been renamed accordingly in our forecast. Also, the Russian government is providing additional assistance to its civil industry and restarting TU-214 production; we’ve added a TU-214 line with modest output. We expect MS-21 to incur another delay, but overall, production is higher than previous forecasts.

ZeroAvia to focus on larger regional aircraft: Not going to be a factor for a long time to come. They’ll probably start modifying existing airframes. New production unlikely until after our forecast timeline, if ever.