Boeing ups forecast Chinese new plane purchases over 20 years by 6.2%

Chinese airlines will buy 7,690 new planes worth US$1.2t over the next 2 decades to keep pace with booming consumer and business demand for air travel, Boeing said Tuesday, raising a previous forecast. The planemaker's latest estimate for the period to 2037 is 6.2% higher than its previous prediction of 7,240 planes until 2036 made last year. "The growth in China can be attributed to the country's growing middle class, which has more than tripled in the last 10 years and is expected to double again in the next 10," said Randy Tinseth, Boeing Commercial Airplanes' VP of marketing. The company has so far been mostly spared in an ongoing trade war between the US and China. Boeing also predicted that China will account for 18%of the world's commercial airplane fleet by 2037, up from 15% currently. <br/>