摘要: |
Aviation has withstood the turbulence created by 9/11 and its aftershocks. An industry that saw four network carriers enter bankruptcy in a five-year period is now back in the black. The FAAs aviation forecast for 2007-2020 indicates that this upswing will continue. Aviation is indeed back, and it has done so with a vengeance. More passengers are flying more than ever. Wall Street has taken notice. Profits of $5.5 billion for the industry and $2.9 billion for passenger carriers are not the entire story. Commercial aviation is still on track to reach a billion passengers by 2015. We expect a growth in passengers of 3.5 percent. Capacity will grow 4.3 percent. Load factors will increase to about 80 percent. The general aviation fleet is looking up as well. We expect the fleet to grow to about 275,000 by 2020, an increase of 51,000. General aviation hours will climb to 43.9 million by 2020, a jump of almost 17 million. Cargo is growing by 5.3 percent as well. Additionally, the FAAs workload will increase. Tower operations should grow 2 percent, and en route operations by more than 3 percent. In the big picture, we expect continued increased passenger demand among low-cost carriers and smaller regional airlines. We also see continued growth in larger regional jets flying more point-to-point routes. There will be increases in corporate jet flights, fractional ownership and new micro jets. Airline operations are expected to return to traditional levels at most hub-and-spoke airports. |