According to BBC, Chinese air carriers have ordered 50 Boeing 737s worth $4.6 billion! With all the advances and so-called futuristic models on the market, the old trusy 100-200 seat single-aisle aircraft market is supposed to generate $20 trillion. Sometime the old dependable stuff works best. Read the article @ http://www.bbc.com/news/business-27107339 An aside, Southwest located here in Vegas only flies 737s and the Airbus A320 apparently quite interchangeable. I couldn't tell the difference.
Growing domestic demand for air travel? Environmentalists won't like that. BBC's choice of vocab is sweet mind you. They refer to fuel-efficient aircraft. They arguably mean less fuel-inefficient!
It should be interesting to figure it out. Example, my wife, puppy, and I drive the 250 miles from Las Vegas to Los Angeles on about 1.75 tanks of fuel. An aircraft flies the same distance with 200 people on board. What is the price per mile of each by comparison?
Its not a valid comparison. Air flights change the opportunity costs associated with travel. Essentially its encouraging greater long distance travel and therefore increasing fuel pollution. A fuel efficient aircraft does not exist
China's domestic airlines are beginning to lose money due to competition from direct high speed rail connections. Chinese domestic airlines can restore their profitability by offering frequent direct connections between small and medium sized cities that are not directly connected by high speed rail. This traffic is most profitable when served by a plane the size of a 737, especially when deployed like how Southwest operates in the US, with mostly two hop flights directly between medium and small cities. Besides, over half of 737 components are already supplied by China and there is a high probability that 737 assembly will begin in China by 2020.
May be a bit off thread but just read that Boeing has just produced its 8,000th 737!!! Only one seems to have surpassed it - the trusty DC-3. In all its various versions, 16,078 rolled off the factory floor. And they're still in service! All over the world and in some of the remotest places on earth.
