India will have to quadruple its commercial airplanes fleet to nearly 3,000 over the next two decades to keep up with demand as its carriers are predicted to outpace global growth, a forecast made by Boeing said on Tuesday.

The US-based company unveiled its 2022 Commercial Market Outlook (CMO) for India, forecasting long-term passenger growth rate of nearly 7% annually through 2041. There are at present 700 aircraft in use by the Indian carriers used on domestic and international routes.

Largely driven by the strength of the domestic market, which has recovered to 98% of pre-pandemic levels, India’s traffic has transitioned from recovery to growth. Indian airlines are expected to add 7% more supply in the first half of 2023, compared to 2019.

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Dave Schulte, Boeing commercial marketing managing director for Asia Pacific, said: “Indian carriers will outpace global growth at nearly 7% and more than 80% of new airplane deliveries to this market will be for growth, while 20% of new airplanes will be for replacement of aging jets.”

Due to the rapid growth in its domestic traffic, Boeing forecasts that 90% of new airplane deliveries to India will be for single-aisle airplanes like the 737 MAX over the next 20 years.

Of the 2210 new airplanes, 1,983 units will be for single-aisle jets, while 227 units or 10% of new airplane deliveries will be for widebody airplanes, predicts Boeing. The aircraft maker further stated potential opportunity value of the services required to enable fleet replacement is $135bn.

IndiGo, India’s biggest carrier is awaiting deliveries of more than 500 aircraft while Tata Sons-promoted Air India is expected to place orders for 500 airplanes, making it the single biggest order ever. Vistara and Akasa Air are also expecting deliveries of around 70 airplanes over the next few years.

“The Indian market is recovering rapidly and its domestic capacity has exceeded 2019 levels, with domestic traffic expected to double by the end of this decade,” Schulte added.

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In addition, the India cargo market will also continue to expand over the next two decades to meet demand. The cargo fleet will grow from about 15 airplanes today to about 80 airplanes by 2041.

“These will predominantly be the converted narrow-body sized aircraft to support domestic and regional growth, as well as a number of production and conversion wide-body freighters to support global operations,” Boeing added