The huge demand for freighters that was seen during the pandemic will continue, Boeing chief executive David Calhoun said and noted efficiency and sustainability are key to the success of the aviation industry as a whole.
Participating in Bloomberg’s Qatar Economic Forum in Doha on Wednesday, Calhoun said the demand for freighters was not impacted at all during the pandemic.
“It was a remarkable fact. The cargo hold in many passenger airplanes were filled and flew with very few passengers. We see that demand continuing for quite some time. So, in our own view that demand is going to continue for a long time.”
Asked whether some sort of recession will maintain a balance between supply and demand, Calhoun said, I won’t be championing a recession – on the other hand, I have no doubt that some slowdown will be helpful in creating some sort of stability that we need to respond to the demand in aviation, which is still significant.”
“Of course, it is not going to affect all the industries equally. In the areas and in the skills where we compete with other industries- software development, data analytics, computational work etc, the answer is… probably will help in some ways the bubble that seems to want to burst in the growth world. In the US it is already being felt by our team with respect to interest levels and staffing up- the things that we have to do. But it is unique to those skills.”
Boeing expects supply chain problems to persist almost until the end of 2023, led by labour shortages at mid-tier and smaller suppliers, partly due to the faster-than-expected return of demand.
Last month, Boeing said the production of its 737 aircraft had been slowed by shortages of a single type of wiring connector, while some of its airline customers had been forced to cancel flights due to a lack of staff in the post-pandemic recovery.
Calhoun said Boeing had a big, complicated supply chain with lots of fragility in it, leading to problems when there were…