India needs jets worth $22 bn over 20 years: Boeing

India will need 290 new jet airliners worth $22 billion over the next 20 years to meet growing air travel demand, Boeing Co, the world's top commercial aircraft maker, forecast on Friday.

Passenger air traffic to, from and within southwest Asia, which is dominated by India, will grow an average 6.7 per cent annually over the next two decades, said Dinesh Keskar, president of Boeing Aircraft Trading.

"The traffic increase within the region will average 8.7 per cent, one of the world's highest growth rates," Keskar told a news conference late on Thursday.

Asia and India have been less affected than elsewhere by the downturn in international air travel following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States, he said.

The volume of passenger traffic in 2002 in these two regions rose about two per cent from 2000, he said.

The aviation giant, whose planes account for 65 per cent of state-owned Air-India's fleet, is pitching to sell the long-haul carrier a long-range version of the Boeing 777-200 over the Airbus A340-300.

Air-India plans to buy 17 of these medium-capacity aircraft to modernise its fleet.

Earlier this year, Boeing lost to Airbus a $2.1 billion contract for 43 planes from state-owned Indian Airlines, the country's largest domestic carrier, which flies only Airbus aircraft.

But Indian Airlines' subsidiary, Alliance Air, and the jet-engined fleets of other Indian domestic air carriers, Jet Airways and Air Sahara fly only Boeing jets.

India, the world's 12th largest economy and the second most populous nation, has a large expatriate population in the United States, Britain and the Middle East, which drives air travel from and to India.

But even though the market is growing, domestic air travel continues to be restricted by fares that are steep in comparison to incomes.

Keskar said international air travel was gradually increasing after the sharp downturn following the September 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, but the volume of passenger traffic was still lower than in 2000.