Boeing, Airbus vying for dominance in Asia

Boeing, Airbus vying for dominance in Asia

Agence France-Presse, Singapore

U.S. giant Boeing Co. and Europe's Airbus Industrie are vying for dominance of Asia's aviation industry as the sector emerges from the turbulence triggered by the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

China has emerged as a key battleground with the restructuring of its civil aviation authority, while Japan is another major market, industry players who attended the Asian Aerospace 2002 conference and exhibition here said.

Deals worth nearly US$3.2 billion were signed during the event, which ended Sunday, and although no contracts were announced by Boeing and Airbus both said they were looking at the long-term market.

Boeing said it expects Asia to become the biggest market for commercial planes in the two decades, with an estimated requirement for more than 5,220 aircraft valued at $537 billion.

Larry Dickenson, senior vice president for sales of Boeing Commercial Planes, said that the region's share of world air travel is forecast to increase to 19 percent by 2020.

Boeing said its planes account for 73 percent of the Asian widebody commercial plane fleet. It delivered 66 planes valued at $8.7 billion in Asia last year.

Airbus president and chief executive Noel Forgeard said the Europe-based company, hurt by a wave of order cancellations last year, should deliver 300 large commercial aircraft worldwide this year, and maintain the same level of sales in 2003.

Singapore Airlines will be the first carrier in the world to fly Airbus' 555-seater A380 superjumbo, the largest civilian aircraft in the world, by the first quarter of 2006, to be followed by Australia's Qantas, Forgeard said.

The rivalry should be most intense in China, where both have an equal market share, and Japan, where Boeing leads.

Airbus executive vice president (commercial) John Leahy said such a consolidation should be a boon for the European aircraft maker as China's bigger airlines use Airbus.

However, he said Japan would be a more difficult market to crack as it is dominated by Boeing but the picture should change in the next few years.

"Part of the problem in Japan is the fact that they really don't understand our product. That was the same problem five or six years ago in China, we had less than 20 percent... yet now we have 50 percent," Leahy said.