Commercial aviation is in a strange position: demand is growing, there are not enough aircraft, yet the industry still has no truly new mass-market airliner. In 2025, global passenger traffic measured in RPK grew by 5.3%, and in February 2026 it increased by another 6.1% year-on-year. At the same time, Airbus ended 2025 with a record backlog of 8,754 commercial aircraft, and the A320 family alone has a backlog of more than 7,000 aircraft. We can see that demand for aircraft is enormous, yet the biggest segment of global aviation seems in no hurry to enter a new era.
Narrow-body aircraft are the foundation of modern commercial aviation. Most of the world flies on them: these are the aircraft that serve short- and medium-haul routes, feed low-cost carriers, and carry a huge share of everyday air travel. According to IATA, narrowbody jets make up 61.1% of the global commercial fleet. Airbus expects that over the next 20 years, 79% of all new commercial aircraft deliveries will be single aisle, and Boeing’s estimate is very close: 76% of future deliveries will also fall into this segment.
That is exactly why a generational shift in narrow-body aircraft will affect literally everyone who flies. Ticket prices, flight reliability, fuel burn, environmental performance, and how quickly airlines will be able to open new routes all depend on it. This is not only a question about the future of Airbus and Boeing, but about the future of mass aviation itself.
We spoke about this with Ben van Sleeuwen — an expert who has been working in the aerospace industry for around two decades. The conversation turned out to be not just about attractive technologies, but about how the industry actually works, with all its constraints, risks, and bets.
2Digital: Why does the next narrow-body aircraft matter so much? When we talk about it, what do we mean: a fundamentally new aircraft, a new technology cycle, or a new bet by the entire industry?
Ben: First of all, let us remember what a narrow-body aircraft is. It is what we know today as the Boeing 737 and the Airbus A320 family: aircraft with roughly 150–240 seats and one aisle between the rows. These aircraft form the backbone of commercial aviation, and today about 80–85% of all commercial flights are operated by them.
Moreover, most of the aircraft that have been ordered but not yet built — the so-called backlog — are also narrow-body aircraft. If I remember correctly, Airbus currently has something like 7000 to 8000 aircraft on order. The overwhelming majority of them are narrow-bodies. The same is true for Boeing’s 737 MAXseries. Everyone working in the aviation industry depends heavily on these aircraft types. If you are an airline, they determine your operating costs, whether you make money or not, whether you can buy aircraft or whether you cannot.
So why is it so important that we are talking about the next narrow-body aircraft?
First of all, because it has been a very long time since truly conceptually new commercial aircraft appeared. In fact, the last commercial aircraft that was genuinely completely new did not come from Airbus or Boeing. It came from the Canadian company Bombardier. Unfortunately, that program did not become a success for Bombardier. It was called the CSeries. They had to sell it to Airbus for the symbolic price of one Canadian dollar, and that is the aircraft we now know as the A220.
It is also considered a narrow-body aircraft. It has a smaller capacity — roughly from 120 to 150 seats. It was supposed to compete with the Boeing 737 and the A320 family. And because of that, Boeing and Airbus aggressively lowered the prices of their own aircraft, while Bombardier failed to make the project successful and had to sell it. So, in fact, the last new narrow-body aircraft entered service in 2016.
Airbus and Boeing, meanwhile, introduced the 737 and the A320 family back in the 1970s and 1980s. That means these aircraft are technically already four to five decades old and have only gone through upgrades. The latest of them — the A320neo and the 737 Max — were also introduced in the last decade. But in essence these are still the same basic designs.
They were modernized primarily through new engines in order to sharply improve fuel efficiency. For airlines, that brought huge savings, because fuel is a key cost item.
2Digital: Will a new aircraft appear at all? Many are convinced that Airbus and Boeing will eventually have to launch a new program. The only question is when and what kind it will be.
Ben: Engineers, of course, like to believe in a breakthrough: hydrogen, electricity, radically new architecture. But if you look at things soberly, the physics of flight and the current level of technology still do not allow the creation of a mass-market narrow-body aircraft that would fly entirely on electricity or purely on hydrogen. That is not going to happen yet.
Most likely, what we will see is an aircraft with a new generation of engines that will provide additional fuel savings compared with current versions. That is why there is so much attention on CFM’s Project RISE and on the open rotor. In essence, this is the same technology as on a turboprop aircraft: you have a propeller positioned in front of the turbine engine. And in essence, it is not enclosed in a nacelle the way it is in conventional turbofan engines.
It is assumed that this technology will provide higher fuel efficiency and could potentially deliver fuel savings at the level of twenty percent if it is implemented.
But there is a major risk here. Yes, the open rotor promises a serious leap in efficiency, up to 20%. But questions remain about noise and, most importantly, safety and certification. In an open rotor, the propeller blades rotate at tremendous speed, at enormous RPM. And if one of them comes off, it is released with an enormous amount of energy and could, for example, fly toward the aircraft fuselage… In aviation, even rare risks matter enormously if the consequences can be catastrophic.
So my view is this: what is much more likely is not a revolution, but gradual evolution. Those are exactly the kinds of solutions the industry usually rewards — less risky, more reliable, and more manageable from a capital point of view.
2Digital: What could push the creation of a new narrow-body model? Under what circumstances?
Ben: In the end, an airline needs an aircraft that flies, not one that sits on the ground. So the fate of the next program will be determined not only by the engine. It will be determined by the combination of certification, industrial readiness, and the economic model of the program.
Let me explain. Why design a new aircraft if it does not deliver fuel savings? Let me speak plainly: for airlines, the biggest cost factor is fuel, it accounts for roughly 30% of the cost of operating an aircraft, then come maintenance costs, then crew, as well as financial costs, meaning the purchase of the aircraft or its lease.
But fuel efficiency alone is not enough. Airbus and Boeing are looking, first, for an aircraft they will be able to produce in large volumes; second, for an aircraft with an acceptable production cost; and third, for an aircraft that, once it starts flying, will be reliable and will not sit idle on the ground. Today, unfortunately, many A320neo and Boeing 737 MAX aircraft are grounded because of engine problems, even though these are not some ultra-new, ultra-advanced engines, yet they still have many problems.
And further — when an aircraft flies, it also has to be affordable to maintain. All of this together means that the big technological leap that many engineers so want to believe in most likely will not happen.
The fate of the new aircraft will be determined by technologies with less risk than the ones people like to talk and dream about. Technologies that make such aircraft easier to manufacture and assemble mean fewer disruptions in the supply chain. And that, in turn, implies that Airbus and Boeing must have greater choice, meaning multiple suppliers for the same systems and components, because today the supply chain is precisely where there is a huge problem.
2Digital: The industry is tired of crises, delays, and certification risks. How ready is it for a new aircraft to appear at all?
Ben: Honestly, I do not think it is truly ready for that.
Problem number one. Airbus and Boeing have huge backlogs because the supply chain is not capable of ramping up fast enough to support the required volume of aircraft production. Quite recently, Airbus even complained rather sharply in the news about engine manufacturer Pratt & Whitney, saying it was not prioritizing the output of new engines sufficiently and was in fact supporting first and foremost the airlines that already have problems with the new engines in service.
Pratt & Whitney also stated that this is exactly what it is focused on. And essentially, this is part of the ongoing supply-chain crisis in the industry. Although the crisis itself is actually paradoxical — we have been living with the same problem for the last decade and you think: seriously? We are talking about assets sold for tens of millions of dollars. Suppliers make huge money selling parts, and then even more supporting them in the aftermarket. Yet despite that, with all the smart people in the world, we still have not managed to solve it.
And there is a fundamental reason for this. It is that many companies are sole-source suppliers. When their parts and components are in short supply, there is an opportunity to strategically inflate the prices of spare parts and components in the aftermarket and make more money that way.
Problem number two is people. Engineers are in short supply not only at Airbus and Boeing, they are also in short supply among all first-, second-, and third-tier suppliers. Because the overwhelming majority of those highly experienced specialists who had practical experience designing new systems and new components for clean-sheet new aircraft have long since retired.
And that means the industry is very far from being ready to launch such a program. And even more striking is that the following scenario is quite likely: let us say Boeing launches a new aircraft program, and then Airbus responds and launches its own. And then suddenly you no longer have one but two major aircraft manufacturers that need to design and certify an aircraft. And what is even more important, there are many Tier-1 companies — such as Honeywell, Parker, Safran, Collins and so on — that will also have to design systems and components for these aircraft.
And they will have to do it for both aircraft at the same time.
You could say: “Well, all right, then let us just hire more engineers.” But it is not that simple. Because a great many truly talented engineers are now working in the space industry, which is doing very well today thanks to companies like SpaceX and Blue Origin. They were able to attract many engineers simply because they paid more and offered better conditions.
And do not forget about the defense sector. Against the backdrop of all the current geopolitical uncertainty, and now also the war involving Israel, the United States, and Iran, and of course the ongoing war in Ukraine, defense plays a huge role in the aerospace and defense industry. And it too attracts a lot of engineers who are working on new programs.
In fact, in the United States there are giant new companies such as Anduril, which, for example, makes drones as well as unmanned combat aircraft. And they too have attracted a very large number of engineers. So is the industry ready? I do not think so. For Airbus, Boeing, and all Tier-1 system suppliers, it will be an extremely hard struggle — to design and then certify a new aircraft.
2Digital: How did the role of certification change after the loss of trust following the Boeing 737 MAX crisis? (After two crashes — in October 2018 and in March 2019 — in which 346 people died, the 737 MAX was temporarily grounded worldwide, and the FAA and other regulators began scrutinizing both Boeing and their own certification procedures much more strictly — editor’s note.) And to what extent does the increased caution of regulators now constrain major innovations in commercial aviation?
Ben: As I said, the MAX was, in essence, the same 737, just with newer engines. Since the engines were much larger, they had to be positioned differently under the wing, moved slightly forward, and that meant the overall balance of the aircraft changed.
And then Boeing installed a safety mechanism linked to the horizontal stabilizer. They made it an automated system that pilots did not fully understand. And in essence, they first managed to certify the aircraft in such a way that pilots did not require major retraining to fly the 737 MAX, which of course was very attractive from a commercial point of view.
But now we know that this was a huge failure that led to two major crashes with many fatalities. It is very important to understand one thing: the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration, effectively as part of cost-saving programs, delegated part of the certification work to Boeing itself. That is exactly what made the whole situation such a huge mess, because Boeing tried to hide these aircraft and new-system problems in order to avoid the need to retrain pilots. But at the same time it was itself part of the certification process.
After the collapse of the 737 MAX, everything had to change. One of the most important changes was that historically the European aviation regulator EASA, as well as the British CAA and the Chinese authorities, simply followed what the FAA certified and then certified the aircraft in Europe, China, and other places relatively easily.
Now that is no longer the case. Everything has become much more regulated, and in the end that is good. Why? Because we want aviation to be safe. If aviation is unsafe, no one will get on an aircraft. And that means we simply will not have an industry. Safety in aviation is by nature a fundamental, basic value of success. So yes, innovation in commercial aviation is limited by regulatory caution.
But again, I do not think that is necessarily bad. It simply means more rigidity. You can still introduce new materials. You can still introduce new technologies. You just have to follow regulatory caution.
But what does that ultimately create? It creates cost. Time and money. So in the end, everything you introduce and everything that has to go through the regulatory certification process ultimately has to be worth doing.
2Digital: Through what will the next narrow-body aircraft be able to become noticeably more environmentally friendly?
Ben: Through a combination of solutions. First of all — more efficient engines. Then — aerodynamics, weight reduction, new materials, and new production methods.
The next generation will still fly on kerosene. Simply because today there is no other technology that would deliver a comparable result in this segment for the same money and with the same scalability. But the aircraft can be made significantly more efficient: thinner and more efficient wings, more composites, less unnecessary mass, active use of additive manufacturing.
Compatibility with synthetic aviation fuels (SAF) is also very important. And this concerns not only the engine itself, but also the fuel, oil, and other systems. That will become a mandatory standard. Today SAF is still expensive. But over time, partly thanks to government incentives, the cost will fall. So that is exactly how these aircraft will be able to become noticeably more environmentally friendly.
There is another interesting point. I have expressed my skepticism about the appearance of hydrogen and electric aircraft. But here is what is possible and what we will probably see in the next generation of narrow-body aircraft — hybrid solutions. For example, it is possible to create solutions that use more electric drive, perhaps even electric motors. In other words, the propulsion technology itself, the aircraft itself, the way energy is distributed throughout the aircraft, how everything moves and is controlled — all of this will become more electric, and that means more hybrid solutions will appear.
You can go even further — as far as having some kind of hydrogen system on board, some hydrogen-based solution that would power certain parts of the aircraft. So that too is one of the key solutions that will make the aircraft noticeably “greener.”
2Digital: How great is the risk that environmental requirements will make the next mass-market aircraft too expensive and that in the end the cost of progress will be passed on to passengers?
Ben: There is a simple, fundamental reason why aviation continues to grow so rapidly and why revenue passenger kilometers (RPK) keep increasing. It is that there are so many people in the world who have never flown, and so many who want to.
And I am not talking only about people in the United States and Europe, but of course also about people in China, India, and Africa. In other words, we are talking about billions of people who want to fly. That is why the cost of flying will always be an important factor, and that is why the whole industry has been quite successful in lowering the cost of flying rather than increasing it.
I fundamentally do not believe that the cost of technology can simply be passed on to passengers. I do not see that happening. I believe much more strongly that aviation has a certain cost that needs to be covered. But at the same time, within the profitability of the aviation industry, especially among manufacturers, system suppliers, and the rest of the supply chain, there is enough margin to offset the costs by absorbing them within the supply chain itself. And that means the cost of flying ultimately will not increase that much.
What is interesting in all of this is the following: even though the cost of flying may have risen over time, people’s willingness to pay for flights has also risen, due to GDP growth in parts of the world such as China and India. And that means more and more people are flying. In fact, historically we have seen that growth in global GDP was very closely linked to growth in RPK.
And for the first time in the last few years, we have seen RPK grow faster than GDP. That means people are willing to spend a relatively larger share of their money on flying than ever before. That too is a very good sign, meaning that people have some room in their willingness to accept a higher cost of flying. But again, if you look at the full economics of air transport, I do not think technological progress will simply be passed on to passengers.
2Digital: What do you consider the key criterion for the success of the next narrow-body aircraft?
Ben: Geopolitical uncertainty like what we are seeing now will not stop aviation. “Black swans” such as COVID, the 737 MAX crisis, and many earlier fuel crises always lead to downturns, but fundamentally we have seen enormous growth in passenger kilometers, and it will not stop.
There will be more flying. And then what is the role of the next generation of narrow-body aircraft? It will make that even more possible. Because fundamentally, the key to aviation growth has been the cost of aviation and the cost of flying. And it was aircraft like the A320 and the 737 that made possible the rise of companies like Ryanair, EasyJet, and Wizz Air in Europe, as well as AirAsia and many other low-cost carriers around the world. They made flying possible for people who previously did not fly at all.
And in the end it is exactly the cost of flying, where the narrow-body aircraft plays a key role, and in the next generation of narrow-body aircraft that role will remain extremely important. I would say it even more clearly — fundamentally, the next generation of narrow-body aircraft must make it possible for more people to fly. And that will be its main task. Period.
Of course, we must also be able to design such aircraft that ultimately will not create an even greater pollution and climate-change problem than the one that already exists, and that means the next generation of narrow-body aircraft will be “greener,” more fuel-efficient. But the main thing it will definitely do is allow many more people to fly. And that is ultimately the role it will play.
2Digital: Could it happen that the Boeing 737 will fly until the end of the century?
Ben: Yes, quite possibly. In aviation that does not look impossible. There are examples in military aviation, like the B-52, which effectively entered service right after World War II. And in military aviation people joke that the last pilot who will fly the B-52 has not even been born yet.
That aircraft is still actively used — 74 years later! Its engines are being replaced so that it can remain in service for the next five decades. So this is an aircraft that will almost certainly remain in operation for more than a century.
The 737 was designed in the 1960s, so it has already been in service for a very long time. Then it was re-engined with the introduction of the 737 MAX. And the last aircraft that will be built and delivered, as I see it, will probably be somewhere closer to 2040.
Is it likely that such an aircraft will live for sixty years? Yes. If you look at some comparable aircraft, like the 727 or the 707, we may indeed still see them flying at the end of this century.
2Digital: Why did the aviation industry develop so rapidly after the 1940s, while over the last 20–30 years we have seen relatively little progress?
Ben: There are two simple answers. There is nothing that drives innovation and the evolution of technology faster than war. It was World War II that gave us the jet engine, rockets, and so on. And we still use jet engines, and we still essentially have the same basic rocket technology in rockets and missile systems.
So why has there been so little progress over the last twenty to thirty years?
Because the industry has two very dominant players — Airbus and Boeing — and no one has been able to successfully displace them or offer a full-fledged alternative. There are other aircraft manufacturers, Embraer for example, but they make other, smaller types of aircraft.
You can look at the Chinese, yes, they will succeed in producing a large number of aircraft for their domestic market, but probably not on such a large scale for markets outside China. In general, there simply has not been that much real competition. That is why these aircraft manufacturers could just continue doing roughly the same thing, only putting new engines on it. There was no real incentive for real progress, real technological evolution, because a great many people there are making a great deal of money.