Ask the Editors: The Aviation Week Network invites our readers to submit questions to our editors and analysts. We’ll answer them, and if we can’t we’ll reach out to our wide network of experts for advice. 

Will the single-aisle aircraft market be less affected than the widebody market by the COVID-19 crisis?

Aviation Week Executive Editor, Commercial Jens Flottau responds: 

The single-aisle market will be severely affected but less so than widebodies. The recovery of air travel will come in phases, and conventional wisdom is that it will begin with domestic flights, followed by regional international services. Both of those are predominantly operated by narrowbody aircraft. 

Given government restrictions on travel, long-haul markets will be the last to reopen. Even before the novel coronavirus crisis, demand for new widebodies had significantly softened as new long-haul narrowbodies such as the Airbus A321XLR ate into the market.

Low fuel prices make it attractive for airlines to extend leases for existing widebodies, such as Cathay Pacific’s Boeing 777-300ER extensions, which are now threatening a 777X order. And in the near term, few airlines will be in a position to finance orders of costly large aircraft and take the commercial risk of operating them.  

Narrowbody aircraft capable of long-haul flying will be the ideal platforms to reenter intercontinental markets, as they cost much less and pose lower financial risk.