by Lacey Pfalz
Last updated: 9:00 AM ET, Tue December 10, 2024
While the International Air Transport Association (IATA) predicts air travel is only expected to grow next year, it’s sounding the alarm that new aircraft deliveries are expected to be below what is needed to keep the global fleet up-to-date and growing, leading to supply chain issues it calls “severe.”
This year, total deliveries of new aircraft from aircraft manufacturers is down an estimated 30 percent from expected, with 1,254 new aircraft taking to the skies. By comparison, that number was 1,813 in 2018, when deliveries were the highest.
And during a year when the industry could use 2,293 new deliveries, 2025 is expected to only deliver about 1,802 of them, though this expectation could be lowered should manufacturing companies, like Boeing, continue to face severe challenges.
Boeing has been embroiled in safety scandals and corporate struggles, more recently with a two-month-long strike that cost the company half a billion dollars each week. Earlier in November, it announced plans to lay off 10 percent of its workforce, which is around 17,000 employees. Boeing’s CEO, David Calhoun, was replaced in August by Robert K. “Kelly” Ortberg.
The supply chain issue comes from a backlog of unfulfilled aircraft orders, which also reached a record high of 17,000 planes this year from both Boeing and Airbus. With delivery rates the way they are, IATA predicts the backlog would take 14 years to fulfill, though it expects rates to speed up.
What does this mean for global aviation? Well, it means the global fleet of airplanes is the oldest on average: the average age of the fleet is 14.8 years old, an increase from the 13.6 years on average it held between 1990-2024. And lack of more fuel efficient new planes could slow aviation’s growth.
“Supply chain issues are frustrating every airline with a triple whammy on revenues, costs, and environmental performance,” said Willie Walsh, IATA’s Director General. “Load factors are at record highs and there is no doubt that if we had more aircraft they could be profitably deployed, so our revenues are being compromised.”
“Meanwhile, the aging fleet that airlines are using has higher maintenance costs, burns more fuel, and takes more capital to keep it flying,” Walsh continued. “And, on top of this, leasing rates have risen more than interest rates as competition among airlines intensified the scramble to find every way possible to expand capacity. This is a time when airlines need to be fixing their battered post-pandemic balance sheets, but progress is effectively capped by supply chain issues that manufacturers need to resolve.”
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