Market Digest

Strong demand seen for new, more fuel efficient single-aisle airplanes

Modest growth predicted for region’s passenger traffic

Boeing forecasts that air carriers in North America will take delivery of about 7,200 new airplanes over the next 20 years at an investment of $700 billion.

New airplane deliveries in Canada and the United States will be driven largely by the need to retire older, less fuel-efficient single-aisle airplanes and regional jets, as airlines replace them with new-generation, more fuel-efficient models. (For the purposes of the Boeing forecast, the North America market consists of the U.S. and Canada. Mexico is included in Boeing’s forecast for Latin America.)

“North America is a large, mature market, and we expect passenger traffic for the region to grow at a modest rate of 3.4 percent,” said Randy Tinseth, vice president of Marketing, Boeing Commercial Airplanes, who released Boeing’s 2010 North America market outlook today in Montreal. “The fast-paced lifestyles in Canada and the U.S. require rapid, frequent and reliable coast-to-coast and interregional transportation. Driven by this demand, nearly three-quarters of the new deliveries over the next 20 years will be single-aisle airplanes.”

Taking retirements of airplanes into account, the North America fleet will grow from 6,590 airplanes today to about 9,000 airplanes by 2029.

Boeing forecasts that single-aisle airplanes will grow from 56 percent of the total North America fleet today to 71 percent of the fleet by 2029. Airlines are increasingly focusing on airplane age as fuel-thirsty, older airplanes weigh increasingly on earnings. Increased attention to aviation’s impact on global climate change also will be a factor in selecting airplanes that produce lower carbon emissions. Read the rest of this entry »

Light and Imports Down, Craft Beer Continues to Rise

Last year marked the third consecutive year of diminishing growth rates in the beer industry, dropping 2.1% to 2.877 billion cases. According to the Beverage Information Group’s recently released 2010 Beer Handbook, the beer industry’s downturn can be directly attributed to the decline in the light beer segment. Light beer, which accounts for a 52.8% share of the U.S. beer market, posted its first negative year since its beginning 30 years ago.

Other segments of the beer industry differed in their 2009 results. Imports declined 6.9% to 359.6 million 2.25-gallon cases, while the craft beer segment increased 7.0%. Craft beer continues to grow at an extraordinary rate, due to the abundance of flavors and types that attract both young and old consumers. Expanded distribution also continues to be a key driver for growth in this segment. It is clear that the “trading up” trend that began before the recession has continued despite the changing economy.

The premium, super premium and flavored malt liquor segments all faced declines; but the popular and ice segments both had slight upticks due to their value price point and strong consumer bases. Read the rest of this entry »

Overall Spending More Than $10,000 Per Person

The U.S. Census Bureau announced today that obligations for federal domestic spending increased 16.0 percent in fiscal year 2009 to $3.2 trillion. The 2009 spending total is equivalent to $10,548 per person living in the United States.

The annual percentage change (16.0 percent) is the largest since the Census Bureau began compiling these data in 1983. The increase is in part from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009.

Entitlement programs Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security comprised 45.7 percent of all funding, or $1.5 trillion. Social Security alone accounted for $709.7 billion of that total. The one-year increase ($136.0 billion) in spending for these three programs was approximately $401 for every person in the United States.

States that had the highest per capita federal spending were Alaska ($20,351), Virginia ($19,734) and Hawaii ($19,001). States with the lowest were Nevada ($7,148), Utah ($7,435) and Georgia ($8,538).

These new figures come from Consolidated Federal Funds Report: 2009, which describes the distribution of federal funds by department and agency, and by state and county. A companion report also released today, Federal Aid to States: 2009, shows federal grants to state and local governments. These reports do not include interest paid on the federal debt and foreign aid. Although federal expenditure and obligation totals for fiscal year 2009 in these reports include money from the ARRA, specific dollar amounts are not identifiable for all programs. Read the rest of this entry »

Now Is A Good Time To “Cruise Them Or Lose Them,” Says Royal Caribbean International

Over-worked, over-tired and stressed-out workers have one more thing to worry about this coming Labor Day – how many vacation days they could potentially be losing this year. And if The President of the United States, who just returned from a respite on Martha’s Vineyard, can still find time, then shouldn’t everyone?

The fact that people are not using all of their vacation days is well documented and the statistics are staggering. According to data released in a 2009 vacation study(1), U.S. adults who only receive an average of 13 vacation days per year typically leave three days unused. When considering that the U.S. Bureau of Labor & Statistics has recorded approximately 153 million employed Americans, this means that each year an average of 459 million vacation days are going unused in the United States. Based on these overwhelming facts, Royal Caribbean is encouraging consumers to use their hard-earned vacation days and reminding them that even The President – a person with arguably one of the hardest jobs in America – needs to get away every now and then.

“Vacations are not a luxury, they’re a necessity,” says John de Graaf, Executive Director of Take Back Your Time, a nonprofit organization that studies issues related to overwork. “Men who take them are 32% less likely to suffer from heart disease than those who don’t. For women, it’s 50%. And women who don’t take vacations are more than twice as likely to suffer from depression. Pass them by at your peril.” Read the rest of this entry »