Asian air transport to grow

JAKARTA (JP): Rolls Royce plc, a giant manufacturer of airplane engines, has said it expects the Asia-Pacific region to become the world's largest air transport market within the next two decades.

Tim Jones, the company's director for Southeast Asia, said in a statement that air transport was relatively underdeveloped in many Asian countries and would present potential for investment once the region's current economic problems had been solved.

He noted that in the U.S. there is one aircraft in service for every 56,000 people, while in Japan, China and India, the ratio is one to 300,000, four million and nine million respectively.

Further liberalization of air transport in Asia would also contribute to sustained growth in the region, he said.

Roll Royce predicts that the Asia-Pacific region will develop the largest intra-region traffic flow, with growth expected to be around 7.8 percent per annum for the next 20 years. That, he said, should make the region the largest buyer of wide-bodied aircraft.

He predicted that global passenger travel would increase at 5 percent per annum over the next 20 years, requiring a fleet of 35,000 civil aircraft worth US$1,500 billion. (02)