This photograph taken on Sunday shows the Boeing 777X during the International Paris Air Show at the Paris Bourget Airport. AFP

Boeing released its 2023 Commercial Market Outlook (CMO), the company’s forecast of 20-year demand for commercial airplanes and services, in advance of the Paris Air Show.

The new CMO comes three years after the pandemic grounded most of the global fleet. According to the American aviation giant, passenger traffic will continue to outpace global economic growth of 2.6%, with the global fleet to nearly double to 48,600 jets, expanding 3.5% per year.

Airlines will replace about half of the global fleet with new, more fuel-efficient models, according to the forecasts.

“Looking to the future of air travel, our 2023 CMO reflects further evolution of passenger traffic tied to global growth of the middle class, investments in sustainability, continued growth for low-cost carriers, and air cargo demand to serve evolving supply chains and express cargo delivery.”

With regards to regional demand, Asia-Pacific markets are projected to represent more than 40% of global demand with half of that total in China.

South Asia’s fleet will expand more than 7% annually, the world’s fastest rate, with India accounting for more than 90% of the region’s passenger traffic. North America and Europe each will account for about 20% of global demand.

Visitors walk past a US Air Force Boeing KC-46 Pegasus during the International Paris Air Show on Sunday. AFP

Low-cost carriers will operate more than 40% of the single-aisle fleet in 2042, up from 10% 20 years ago. Margins at Boeing’s defense unit will look similar in the second quarter to its first-quarter results, Boeing Defence CEO Ted Colbert said on Sunday. Margins at its defense unit were negative in the first quarter as Boeing recorded a $245 million pre-tax charge on the KC-46 tanker program. Colbert declined to say whether Boeing would take another charge on the KC-46, which has logged more than $7 billion in losses.

“We’re still assessing where the numbers are going to fall,” Colbert told reporters in a briefing ahead of the Paris Airshow. He added that there is a “ton of activity” to improve performance at Boeing’s defense unit but that it will take time for improvements to be seen. Boeing remains focused on “starting every program the right way,” including a contract structure that gives Boeing a “fair shake and healthy business,” Colbert said.

The defense unit’s large number of fixed-price development programs - including KC-46, the T-7 training jet and new Air Force One planes - have driven billions of dollars in losses. Deliveries of the KC-46 have been stymied due to a supplier problem, and the company has yet to deliver a reworked KC-46 to the Air Force. Colbert declined to say when it will deliver its next tanker. Meanwhile, after a decade in the shadows, one of Europe’s mystery aerospace projects - the X9 helicopter - is taking shape as a potential future successor to Airbus Helicopters’ H145 light-twin chopper, with plans for a demonstrator underway, industry sources said.

The X9 was one of two coded projects briefly sketched out by former helicopters chief Lutz Bertling in 2012 alongside the X6 SuperPuma replacement, which was later abandoned as low oil and gas prices at the time hit a key prospective customer base.

Since then, little further has been said about the market for the X9 sister project - or even whether it still exists. A Berlin filing by Airbus Helicopters’ German subsidiary in 2020 noted its board had been briefed on the X9 and unspecified “further steps.”

The same unit later said it would focus on ensuring “the future viability of civil helicopters” at Donauwoerth, Germany.

The Bavarian town is home to the twin-engined H135 and H145, while other civil programmes focus mainly on Marignane, France, where the world’s largest commercial helicopter maker is based. With sales still booming, Airbus has so far been content to upgrade the H145, which has its roots in a 1990s German-Japanese project and whose latest version adds an extra blade.

In private, however, Airbus is exploring a potential H145 successor under the X9 codename and is ready to take the idea one step beyond the drawing board by seeking propulsion and other options for a planned demonstrator, the sources said.

A demonstrator is a one-off test bench designed to test technology, which may or may not lead to a specific product. But the plans indicate where Airbus is focusing its attention.

The X9 also has a programme office in Donauwoerth, according to a LinkedIn post. Even so, with the upgraded H145 still in demand, any launch decision remains some way off, the sources said. It can take 7-10 years and $1 billion to develop a new helicopter. In a statement to Reuters, Airbus did not respond directly to questions about the X9, but said: “As market leaders, we are of course looking into the next generation of helicopters. “We are currently working on several research and technology bricks that are aimed at making our aircraft more efficient while offering performance and mission flexibility.”