COLOMIERS, France — The international aircraft industry will recover faster than expected, European manufacturer Airbus said Monday, predicting a need for about $3.2 trillion in new passenger and freighter planes globally over the next 20 years.
The figure translates to nearly 26,000 aircraft, up slightly from an earlier forecast of 25,000. Strong growth in new markets and low-cost airlines in Asia will help propel demand. Though global air traffic historically doubles every 15 years, it is expected to do so in India and China in only six, the company said.
Airbus’ 2010-29 upbeat market forecast followed several recent setbacks for the European consortium.
On Nov. 4, a Qantas A380 superjumbo, Airbus’ star plane, made a safe emergency landing in Singapore in what was the most significant safety issue yet for the giant jet since it began passenger flights in 2007.
On top of that, a French investigating judge has placed Airbus’ chief operating officer, John Leahy, under investigation — a step short of formal charges — for alleged illegal insider trading in a longstanding probe targeting several executives of Airbus and its parent company, EADS.
The preliminary charges, filed Nov. 5 but not reported until days ago, give the magistrate more time to investigate and decide whether to send the case to trial. At least four other people face preliminary charges in the investigation, said Agnes Labregere of the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Last year, a similar investigation by the French stock-market regulator cleared EADS executives, saying there was no evidence that they used knowledge of delays to the A380 program when selling shares or exercising stock options worth millions of dollars in 2005 and early 2006.
Addressing the Qantas emergency landing, Leahy criticized engine-maker Rolls-Royce’s public relations after the incident, suggesting the company hadn’t been forthcoming enough.
An oil leak caused the plane’s Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engine to disintegrate in midair — an event that led to a global safety review of the world’s biggest jetliner.
“The airplane performed very well; the engine didn’t perform quite as well,” Leahy said after the news conference, adding that Rolls- Royce was installing a software fix so an engine would shut itself down in the event of future problems.
