The drive for domestic and regional connectivity means that the fastest traffic growth in the region would be seen from small and medium sized cities with challenging airports. This is creating an increased number of point-to-point routes where the traffic is insufficient to allow economical operation of a larger single aisle aircraft. Thus, the increasing demand for high-performing regional and small single-aisle aircraft.

In the region, over 60% of all routes flown today have demand for less than 150 passengers per day. The forecast says that by 2036, intra-regional traffic will account for 80 per cent of all Asia-Pacific demand, with the majority of passengers taking short haul flights of under 500 nautical miles (925 km).

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