HONG KONG - Airbus forecasts Asia-Pacific airlines will need 19,120 new passenger aircraft through 2045 as regional traffic grows faster than the global average.
The regional outlook, presented in Hong Kong on Sept. 15, draws on Airbus’s 2026–2045 Global Market Forecast, released on July 8. Asia-Pacific is projected to account for about 45% of worldwide demand for 42,060 new aircraft over the 20-year period.
Passenger traffic in the region is forecast to grow at a compound annual rate of 5.1%, compared with 3.9% globally, more than doubling over the forecast period, according to Airbus’s Sept. 15 Asia-Pacific outlook.
About one-third of the 19,120 aircraft would replace existing jets, while the remainder would support fleet growth. Airbus forecasts demand for 15,700 single-aisle aircraft in the 100-to-244-seat category and 3,420 widebody aircraft. The regional widebody figure is about 42% of the 8,140 widebodies Airbus projects will be required globally.
Airbus expects Asia-Pacific’s middle-income population to reach three billion by 2045 and says urbanisation will increasingly support air links between smaller and secondary cities.
Its global forecast also identifies increased international migration and visiting-friends-and-relatives travel as factors reshaping passenger demand, alongside growth in markets including India, Vietnam, Indonesia and Malaysia.
Airbus says longer-range single-aisle aircraft can make more lower-density routes commercially viable while allowing airlines to bypass some traditional hubs.
The company said its A220 had already enabled more than 400 new routes globally and projected that the aircraft could open more than 800 previously unserved city pairs in Asia-Pacific.
Demand has remained firm despite geopolitical and supply-chain pressures, Airbus Asia-Pacific President Anand Stanley said at the Hong Kong briefing.
“We continue to see strong demand,” Stanley told reporters, according to Reuters’s report from the briefing. He said Airbus deliveries had risen 9% so far in 2026 compared with the same period last year.
The figures are long-term market projections rather than committed aircraft orders.
Asian Aviation quoted Stanley as saying airlines were “decentralising beyond traditional hub-and-spoke models to connect secondary cities directly to the global economy.”
