Boeing forecast Thursday that airlines in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States would buy $90 billion of new passenger aircraft over the next 20 years as they retire Soviet-era fleets.
CIS countries led by Russia will take delivery of about 960 new planes in the next two decades, Chicago-based Boeing said in an e-mailed statement. The CIS is a loose grouping of 11 former Soviet republics.
“Demand for airplanes also will be fueled by an increase in the number of people flying,” Randy Tinseth, Boeing Commercial Airplanes vice president for marketing, said in the statement. “We expect passenger traffic for the region to grow at a rate of 4.8 percent on average.”
Russia’s 35 airlines led by state-controlled Aeroflot are buying more Boeing and Airbus aircraft to replace Soviet-designed Tupolevs and Ilyushins as its domestic industry can’t produce new aircraft in sufficient numbers. Russian carriers flew 38 million passengers in the first eight months, 28 percent more than a year earlier.
Forty CIS carriers operate 339 Boeing aircraft, according to company information, including 224 jetliners in Russia. Boeing has orders for 41 more planes from Russian airlines.
Airbus counts more than 190 of its jets operated by 14 airlines in the CIS, including more than 150 in Russia. It will deliver 90 more aircraft in the area in the next three to five years, according to the company’s forecast.
