Boeing is bullish on the India-dominated South Asian aviation markets, with airlines showing profits and ordering new planes, a senior company executive said here today.
"SpiceJet is talking about ordering 100 planes for the first time... While IndiGo has ordered 430 planes (over the next 10 years)," said Dinesh Keskar, senior vice president for Asia Pacific and India Sales for Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
"Our forecast for that (South Asian) market is about USD 240 billion worth of 1,700 planes - it is a pretty big market," he said.
Addressing media on Boeing forecast at the Singapore Airshow 2016, he said low fuel oil price and increasing passenger traffic volume were helping the South Asian airlines.
But the airlines are concerned about currency exchange rates against the US dollar, which is becoming strong against many currencies in the world, he said.
Keskar would want to see a balanced supply and demand situation in the airline industry, noting that passenger volume was increasing in the region with more and more people with disposable income travelling.
He recalled the challenge of managing South Asian airline businesses in the past decade especially the impact of expensive oil, priced at USD 150 per barrel, and the air fare wars.
As long as there is a reasonable match between demand and supply, the South Asian airlines will make money.
"It is when we have over capacity, which has been the case over the majority of the past decade in India, that is when the problem starts because people do fare wars," said Keskar.
But he was happy to note the record profits reported by Jet Airways and SpiceJet and orders following for new planes.
"Right now we are quite pleased with where the Asian markets are. Airlines have been in pretty good shape for the last four quarters," he said.
