Company That Sells Airplanes Predicts Huge Demand for Airplanes
Boeing today released its annual Boeing Market Outlook which had quite the sunny feel to it. The company says demand for all aerospace products in the next decade has risen from $8.5 trillion to $9 trillion.
In the commercial aircraft space specifically, Boeing says there will be demand for 19,000 airplanes globally worth $3.2 trillion — or $12.99 after Ryanair gets done negotiating the price.
Looking out 20 years, Boeing sees a need for over 43,000 airplanes. The breakdown has the incredibly specific number of 2,390 aircraft under 90 seats, 32,660 narrowbody aircraft over 90 seats, 7,670 widebody aircraft, and 890 freighters. Freighters are where Boeing sees big demand growth, but then again, that’s a pretty puny number anyway.
Boeing says that long-term demand for narrowbodies remains fairly constant to where it was before the pandemic, but that demand for widebodies is down 8% vs the pre-pandemic forecast. This revelation was immediately followed by cries of discrimination against plus-size airplanes.
Hong Kong’s Strict COVID Rules Force Air Canada to Make a Stop
Though Europe and Latin America have opened up to at least some North American travelers, Asia remains off-limits to most people, and Hong Kong is one of the most strict of all. It’s so strict that Air Canada has decided it will no longer fly nonstop from Canada to Hong Kong for the near future.
An Air Canada crew had been vaccinated and had tested negative before taking a cargo aircraft from Canada to Hong Kong. It’s a very long flight… long enough that one of the crewmembers tested positive upon arrival. Hong Kong has now required the crew remain under quarantine for 21 days which has no basis in medical reality. Consular officials are now negotiating to get the crew out, and a Hollywood studio has already optioned the film rights for Argo II: Straight Outta Hong Kong.
In the meantime, Air Canada has said all these cargo flights will stop in Incheon on their way to Hong Kong. Presumably this will allow Air Canada to put a fresh crew on the airplane in Incheon which can then fly roundtrip to Hong Kong without getting off the airplane, avoiding testing rules. This is already what the airline does for flights to mainland China, and is going to make commercial service very difficult until the rules change.
Sun Country Forces Minnesota on Unsuspecting Passengers
Most flights on hometown airline Sun Country touch Minnesota, and now the airline will be catering to the homers with new inflight entertainment and food and beverage options that may confuse or frighten unsuspecting non-Minnesotans.
Sun Country will begin serving Caribou Coffee — now the official coffee of Sun Country. Sun Country will actually be spending $250,000 to “ensure high flavor quality and consistency across its fleet.” In other words, the airline won’t use the blue water from the lav anymore. As part of the sponsorship, Sun Country will now have hot coffee available without charge for all passengers. You can thank Caribou for buying you a cup.
Fulton Brewing and Dot’s Pretzels will be available for purchase on any flight as well. Those who pay for extra legroom seats get a packet of pretzels for free. What a deal!
Sun Country will also begin offering 15 Minnesota-based tv programs and movies via inflight entertainment. The only titles mentioned specifically are Purple Rain, The Mighty Ducks, Grumpy Old Men, The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and Juno. We assume the 1970 classic Airport — which was mostly filmed at Minneapolis/St Paul — will not be on the list due to that whole “bomb exploding on airplane” thing.
- Air Canada is going to restart Sydney flights on December 17, a good sign that Australian borders may actually start to open up by the end of the year.
- Air New Zealand will not resume the Christchurch – Gold Coast, Auckland – Maroochydore, and Auckland – Cairns routes until March 26, 2022.
- American is bringing its inflight entertainment maintenance in-house, away from the system manufacturers. If your screen doesn’t work on your next flight, now you know who to blame.
- American today reopened its first Flagship Lounge since the pandemic began. JFK is now open with Miami following in two weeks.
- Avianca Argentina is looking to make a comeback. Why any airline would voluntarily start flying in that very difficult market is beyond us.
- China Eastern‘s first COMAC C919 — the first of the aircraft to be delivered to anyone — is entering final assembly. The
A320-ripoffnarrowbody aircraft will seat 158 to 168 passengers and is only likely to fly within China for the near future. - FedEx is giving up its single slot at Long Beach Airport, opening the door for one lucky airline to pick up an extra flight.
- Hageland Aviation Services looks to be gone for good now that its new owner has moved on and couldn’t find a buyer for the Alaskan operator.
- Icelandair has requested permission to fly a weekly charter flight from Orlando to Havana for 13 weeks starting October 5. This information is nearly as useless as American bringing back hot nuts.
- LATAM Brasil will start flying Boeing B787s in December, replacing the Airbus A350s that are leaving the fleet.
- Ryanair has a new training center coming online in Dublin which will help the airline crank out 5,000 new pilot and flight attendant jobs in the next 5 years. That is the second largest number of new employees needed behind lawyers, who will be used to ramp up litigation efforts against everyone everywhere.
- Ukraine International will begin flying hordes of Ukrainians to Cancun, Punta Cana, and the Maldives on Boeing B777-300ER aircraft.
What do Minnesota Vikings fans do after they win the Super Bowl?
Shut off the Xbox and go to bed.
