China will need 5,580 new planes valued at $780b in next 20 years

China's civil aviation fleet will triple to 6,450 aircraft over the next two decades, and Chinese airlines will grow faster in the international market than in the domestic sector, Boeing Co said on Thursday.

China will need 5,580 new aircraft valued at $780 billion during the period, the United States-based plane manufacturer said in its market outlook.

China's new aircraft market accounts for about 16 percent of the global total in terms of new deliveries and market value. More than 35,000 new commercial airplanes valued at $4.8 trillion are forecast to be delivered worldwide during the next 20 years, Boeing said.

Three-fourths of the new planes in China will be for growth rather than replacement, which shows that China is a fast-expanding market, said Randy Tinseth, vice-president of marketing of Boeing Commercial Airplanes.

"Thanks to strong economic growth and increased access to air travel, we project China traffic to grow at nearly 7 percent each year," he said.

Chinese airlines' share in the international market will also continue increasing, Tinseth said.

Long-haul international traffic to and from China is forecast to grow at an annual rate of 7.2 percent, primarily driven by anticipated passenger traffic gains between China and North America, Europe, the Middle East, Oceania and Africa, Boeing said in its market outlook.

Also, growth in the long-haul segment is expected to result in demand for an additional 1,440 new wide-body aircraft in China by 2032.

Foreign airlines said it is getting difficult to add flights to China, because of Chinese airlines' ambitions for the international market.

"I do not blame the government in China, because China has its own domestic airline expansion and it has to give priority to domestic airlines," said Akbar Al Baker, CEO of Qatar Airways Co.

In 2011, the Middle Eastern carrier launched a two-year plan to double its services to China from 35 a week, but as of now, it's only running 41 services weekly, including a new route between Chengdu and Doha that began on Tuesday.

The domestic market will remain the major market for Chinese carriers, and the size of China's domestic air traffic market will be close to North America's by 2031, Boeing forecast.

"China will surpass the US and become the world's largest domestic air travel market in the next 20 years," said Tinseth.

Growth will not just come from the big cities but also from second-tier markets, he added.