World: Airlines expect low oil prices will end in about three years

Airlines expect the low oil prices that have been propping up the industry will end in about three years, just in time for new fuel-efficient planes to enter service, according to the top executives of jetmaker Airbus Group and lessor AerCap Holdings. “Take the A320neo, the new Airbus product. We have already leased over 100 of those airplanes and we haven’t even taken delivery of the first one,” AerCap CEO Aengus Kelly said. “We’ve never seen demand for a new technology asset that we are seeing for this airplane, and similar for the Boeing 787.” Carriers have kept operating older aircraft, taking advantage of growing demand and relatively low operating costs, while preparing for a rise in crude prices by ordering fuel-efficient Airbus and Boeing jetliners. Those will start arriving toward the end of the decade. “We are definitely seeing airlines extending the life of airplanes, that we had assumed we would be parting out into beer cans,” Kelly said. “However, we’re not seeing them extend the life of these assets past three years.”<br/>