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Planemakers Boeing and Airbus have acknowledged they soon will have to deal with competitors in the narrow body segment.
The single-aisle jet market will probably be worth US$1.68 trillion between now and 2029, Boeing estimates. It's a segment that is worth about 40 per cent of all plane sales.
"This cozy world of just the two of us is almost over," Boeing ceo Jim McNerney said.
The competition is coming from established Canadian planemaker Bombardier, China's state-owned Comac and Russia's Irkut.
In two years' time, Bombardier's CSeries jet probably will be in test-flight phase, Comac and Irkut have said they'll field challengers to Airbus and Boeing by 2016.
Bloggers and commentators alike say this year's Farnborough air show in the UK, which starts July 19 and runs through till July 25, may indicate which planemaker/s dominate the future of the single-aisle segment.
They say Bombardier for one will be hoping that at least some of its promised contracts for the new CSeries will be signed, including an elusive Qatar Airways deal.
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