An influx of tens of millions of migrants to Europe is set to help double demand for air travel, according to Airbus forecasts. 

Migrants living in Britain and the EU who travel home to countries such as India have emerged as a major factor behind the rising appetite for flights, the plane maker said.

Some 108 million people living in Europe in 2024 were born outside the continent, a 60pc jump since 2000, Airbus said in its latest 20-year estimate of travel demand, citing United Nations data.

Visiting friends and relatives – known in the travel trade as VFR – already ranks second only to holidays as the most common reason given for booking international flights from the UK.

Airbus added that other regions had also seen dramatic increases, with passenger numbers swollen by six million students studying overseas who return home outside term time.

‘Migration is a bigger driver’

Antonio da Costa, the head of market analysis at Airbus, highlighted the effect of migration in the firm’s 2026 Global Market Forecast, which predicts that almost 46,000 planes will be needed by 2045 – up from the 23,000 in service at the end of last year.

He said that the trend of increased migration, which had seen the global migrant population jump by 70pc to more than 300 million so far this century, was expected to continue, providing an “engine of growth” for flights.

Mr da Costa said: “Migration is a bigger driver than it used to be. What we probably missed but is becoming more and more apparent is that there is a bigger diaspora around the world.

“It’s not just more migrants but more wealthier migrants who can afford to fly every six months, three months and go back and visit family.

“These families are putting down roots and having children who then also go back. You can see by the traffic growth going back to India.”

Growing middle and upper class

The biggest single driver of demand for flights will be a rapid expansion in the number of people worldwide who are sufficiently wealthy to make regular journeys, according to Airbus.

The European manufacturer said a global middle and upper class that numbered 2.5 billion people two decades ago now stands at 4.5 billion – more than half the world’s population – and is on track to top six billion by 2045.

Mr da Costa said: “GDP has been increasing quite dramatically in developing countries such as China and India. What it translates to is a strong increase in the middle and upper classes, who are the people who can afford to fly.”

Joost van der Heijden, Airbus’s commercial marketing chief, added that the trend meant that relatives of people in previously poor areas have the means to visit loved ones in countries such as the UK.

He said: “With the growth of the middle and upper class in emerging markets – India of course is an example – people in those countries now have the means to travel and visit family who have migrated.”

Airbus forecasts that the propensity to travel will double in the next 20 years, even in relatively impoverished countries such as Nigeria, South Africa and Egypt, and increase sixfold in India.

The Chinese domestic market is expected to become the world’s largest for air travel, overtaking the internal US market, with India in second place.

So-called megacities will be displaced as a driver of flight growth by the rise of medium and smaller cities that currently lack connectivity, it said. That will lead to a higher proportion of direct flights and relatively fewer flights through major hub airports.

All told, the industry will require 42,060 new aircraft in the next 20 years, around 20,000 to replace older planes and 22,000 for growth, Airbus predicted. It said that around four-fifths will be for short-haul routes, and the rest will be long-haul wide-bodies.