UNS — Boeing’s international aircraft company took part in a guest lecture hosted by Universitas Sebelas Maret (UNS) Surakarta on Tuesday (8/3/2022). The aircraft company giant revealed its predictions about international and Indonesian aviation trends through the Zoom Cloud Meetings platform.
In this event, Boeing was represented by Gregg Gildemann, Regional Director Market Analysis, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. In addition, there was Veronika W.R. Andrews, UNS alumnus, who currently serves as Project Manager at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The Vice-Rector for Planning, Partnership, Business, and Information Affairs UNS, Prof. Dr. rer.nat Sajidan also attended the event hosted by UNS Fintech Center.
“Thank you for Mrs. Veronika’s help in making this event possible. We are very fortunate to have this event. We hope Boeing can explain to the participants the current condition of the aviation industry and career opportunities in the aviation world considering that currently, Boeing has just opened an office in Jakarta,” said Prof. Sajidan.
This event is one of the agenda for the UNS 46th Anniversary held on March 11. This guest lecture is specifically carried out to give a clear understanding to the UNS students in the aviation sector.
The Aviation Sector is Recovering Gradually
Gregg Gildemann, the speaker for the Guest Lecture, delivers material following the theme “Commercial Passenger/Air Cargo Market Update and Long Term Forecast” for one hour long. Gregg said that the pandemic is profoundly affecting the aviation world. During the spread of Covid-19 in early 2020, the world aviation trend plummeted. However, the aviation trend is slowly starting to show a recovery during 2021. At the beginning of the pandemic, the decline in flight trends is due to many flight bans. Moreover, the large number of countries that closed flight access also caused the aviation industry to experience a downturn.
In 2021 the industry experienced a rise due to the significant influence of the vaccination rate. Gregg said that according to Boeing’s predictions, domestic flights would recover, as before the pandemic, in 2022. “Flight trends are falling due to the pandemic. However, starting in 2021, the world of aviation is slowly improving. We predict that in 2023-2024 the aviation traffic can return to that in 2019. Flight recovery will start from domestic flights in 2022, followed by regional flights in 2023, and globally or internationally in 2024,” he said.
Economic growth in Indonesia is also considered to be improving. Indonesia’s economy fell in the fourth quarter of 2020 but improved in 2021. In the fourth quarter of 2022, the Indonesian economy is predicted to accelerate from the pre-pandemic condition.
Cargo Trends Rising During Pandemic
In contrast with the passenger aircraft, the trend of cargo aircraft rose during the pandemic. This situation results from rising trends in online stores (e-commerce) and logistics during the pandemic.
The community activities restrictions policy leads people to carry out their activities virtually. One of the online activities is shopping. This delivery for groceries or packages needs a lot of cargo planes to expedite the delivery time. Therefore, cargo planes trends are increased during the pandemic.
“The cargo aircraft market has experienced a major impact and change since March 2020, due to various things including the acceleration of e-commerce, the high demand for medical supplies, and maritime countries challenges, which leads to the selection of cargo planes to deliver goods,” he concluded. Humas UNS
Reporter: Ida Fitriyah
Editor: Dwi Hastuti