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Boeing Co. reduced its 20-year forecast for commercial-jet deliveries for the first time in at least a decade as the global recession weighs on air traffic.

The company sees a market for 29,000 new planes over the next two decades, Randy Tinseth, the marketing chief for Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said at a press briefing in London today. That’s 1.4 percent less than the forecast a year ago for 29,400 aircraft, though the value -- $3.2 trillion -- is unchanged because of price inflation.

“In light of declining demand, airlines have removed airplanes from the fleet,” with the number of grounded aircraft surpassing deliveries for the first time in at least the last 10 years, Tinseth said in an interview. “You’re starting from a lower number and growing at slower rates.”

Carriers have canceled and deferred jet orders as the recession limited financing options and crimped travel demand. That’s prompted predictions that planemakers will have to respond with production cuts of as much 30 percent in the next year by the International Air Transport Association and International Lease Finance Corp., the biggest customer of Chicago-based Boeing and Airbus SAS.

There will be 1,300 too many commercial aircraft in the worldwide air-travel system by the end of this year, or overcapacity of about 8 percent, according to a report today by UBS AG.

“Overcapacity can only be cleared if global production rates fall by about 30 percent from their 2009 peak,” wrote UBS analysts including Avi Hoddes. “This is materially below current production plans and presents a real earnings headwind for the sector.”

‘Very Rare’

A cut to the industry-wide delivery forecast, which has been published annually since 1964, is “very rare,” Tinseth said.

Today’s reduced projection compares with a forecast for a 2.8 percent gain made last year, a 5.2 percent increase estimated in 2007 and a 5.8 percent jump predicted in 2006.

Boeing also predicted that global air traffic will grow at a pace of 4.9 percent a year, less than the 5 percent estimated last year and below the annual trend of 5.3 percent since 1978.

There’s a lag between economic growth and traffic growth, Tinseth said.

“Somehow this industry always finds a way to get back to that long-term growth trend, whether it be through new airline business models or the development of emerging markets,” Tinseth said in an interview. “I’m not changing our forecast, and I’m not saying we’re going to surprise ourselves, but we always do.”

Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic, Defence & Space Co., said in February 2008 it expected airlines to buy 24,300 planes worth $2.8 trillion during the next 20 years. Around 1,300 very large passenger aircraft will be needed to link hub cities, Airbus said then. The Toulouse, France-based company is Boeing’s only larger commercial rival.

Source: Bloomberg.com By Susanna Ray