China needs to order hundreds more planes: Avolon CEO

Beijing

CHINA, which needs US$1 trillion worth of aircraft over the next 20 years, has under-ordered by some 750 planes over the next decade, the chief executive officer of lessor Avolon Holdings Ltd said, suggesting that more orders lie ahead for Boeing Co and Airbus Group SE.

"The Chinese market is driven by demographics," Domhnal Slattery said on Monday in a Bloomberg TV interview. "Quite simply, if we look at Asia, there's 600 million to 700 million in the middle class. That's going to grow in the next 20 years to 2.6 billion people. That's 400 per cent growth."