BD's aviation market doubles in seven years

The aviation market of Bangladesh doubled over the last seven years to 2017 and is expected to grow at even faster rate in the near future. This has prompted Airbus to look to the market with offers for supplying their most modern and up-to-date aircraft for meeting the country's needs.

"Bangladesh aviation market is growing and witnessed 99 per cent growth in international traffic (passengers) over the last seven years (compound annual growth rate of more or less 10 per cent in both direction)," said Sheel Shukla, Senior Sales Director of Airbus Customer Affairs.

He was giving a presentation on the global aviation industry, with focus on Bangladesh, before a group of journalists from Bangladesh at the Airbus headquarters in Toulouse, France recently.

In terms of gross order intake, Airbus has been the largest aircraft manufacturer in eight out of the last 10 years to December 31, 2018. The company is an industry leader with the largest order booking.

"The air traffic market of Bangladesh is one of the fastest growing in the world," he said, adding that the Airbus has new modern and up-to-date aircraft to meet the needs of a market like Bangladesh.

Mr. Sheel said Bangladesh is a growing emerging market with rising per capita income and middle class while the GDP (Gross Domestic Product) growth is directly related to the air traffic.

The country's GDP is growing at much faster rate in the recent years and would grow at 5.4 per cent in the next 20 years from 2017 to 2037, which is above the world average of 2.8 per cent, he said.

At this rate, he added, the aviation industry of Bangladesh would be doubled in 15 years - at par with the global growth rate of aviation industry. The global air traffic has proved to be resilient to external shocks and doubles in every 15 years, he said.

But it would double in Bangladesh much earlier if the GDP grows at much faster rate, he said.

According to official estimates, Bangladesh's GDP grew at 7.8 per cent during the last couple of fiscal years and the government of Bangladesh is expecting it to be over 8.0 per cent at the end of the current fiscal year (2018-19).

In his presentation, Mr. Sheel said some 0.76 million passengers travelled in both direction between Bangladesh and India in the year 2010, which increased to about 1.2 million while the number was 2.4 million in 2010 and 4.3 million in 2017 between Bangladesh and Middle East, and 2.4 million in 2010 and 5.5 million in 2017 between Bangladesh and other countries

Around 30 per cent of emerging country population took a flight in 2017 and more or less 85 per cent of the emerging country population, including Bangladesh, will fly in 2037 while traffic to and from and within Bangladesh is forecast to grow at 5.5 per cent annually, he added. In the domestic market it would grow at 3.5 per cent annually.

There would be a demand for around 150 passenger aircraft to serve Bangladesh by 2037 when the country would require 82 small carriers, which were only 27 in 2017. Bangladesh will also require 27 medium, 20 large and 24 extra-large aircraft in 2037 as compared to 09, 05 and 10 respectively in 2017.

He said that the air freight is a high growth market and Bangladesh's air freight market was growing at 12 per cent per annum in terms of value while high-value exports are suitable for air freight.

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