India overtook China as the world's largest buyer of aircraft
Close the curtains/text
Today (July 1) there is news that China Southern Airlines has placed an order to buy 96 Airbus A320neo aircraft. Some flying friends asked La Zong whether this list is not big? China's civil aviation is now losing so much, why buy an airplane? Is China still the world's largest buyer of aircraft? ...... Wait a minute.
China's civil aviation can now be said to be a loss of even bottoms, but it is still necessary to buy an airplane. This is mainly because the aircraft delivery takes two to three years to cycle, do not think about the long term, then may be blind. Another reason is that airlines have to upgrade their fleets, and the maintenance costs of old aircraft will become higher and higher; By replacing it with a new generation of fuel-efficient aircraft one day earlier, the cost can be reduced one day earlier.
The order for 96 A320neo is certainly not small, but it is not "huge". China Southern's order is worth $12.248 billion, or $127.6 million per aircraft, which is not cheap. But the planes are all "discounted", Boeing and Airbus often give about 40% discount for large orders, so the final cost must be much lower, right.
For the A320neo, you can refer to the order of Indigo Airlines of India. It threw out an order for 300 aircraft in 2019, when the catalog price was $110 million, and the media said it was a "$33 billion" big order. India's buying of aircraft has been particularly fierce in recent years, and the momentum has even surpassed our 2013. At that time, we often bought a hundred or two hundred, and the scenery was very beautiful.
Following the privatization of Air India, there was also recent news that it was going to buy 300 aircraft. In addition, during the epidemic, India has created a large airline called "Akasa Air". Akasa bought 100 Boeing 737 MAX in one go, and then actually placed an order for 72 — which is also amazing for startups.
So there is no doubt that even without the pandemic, China would no longer be the world's largest buyer of aircraft. Gone are the good days of introducing more than 400 aircraft a year.
