A new forecast published by Boeing on Monday shows a 20-year demand for 558,000 pilots and 609,000 technicians, reflecting more than a 4-percent increase over last year’s projections. The Asia-Pacific region will account for 41 percent of the demand for new pilots and 39 percent of new mechanics, equating to more than double the number of each group Europe and North America will need, said the report.

The air transport boom in Asia presents a big infrastructure and staffing challenge for several countries including China, which 20 years ago had no indigenous private aviation industry from which to draw pilots, noted Boeing Flight Services vice president Sherry Carbary. “Outside the U.S., where a lot of the airplanes are going...take Asia-Pacific as an example...people have grown up without little airplanes flying overhead, without being exposed to it like they are in the United States, so there’s been a real focus on how do we get that generation, that population excited about aviation,” she said. “The good news is, in the case of China, there’s a lot of interest and so the real issue is not getting the kids interested in becoming pilots and technicians, it’s making sure the infrastructure exists.”

Flight schools and simulator facilities account for a vital part of that infrastructure, and Carbary talked about Boeing’s investment in a program to train ab initio pilots at partner institutions. Boeing counts a network of 17 campuses around the world, consisting of eight Boeing Flight Services owned and operated facilities, six customer sites, a joint-venture campus in Casablanca and a pair of sites—in Mexico City and Buenos Aires—where it has placed simulators. Expansion plans include the placement of a new 737NG simulator at Boeing’s Shanghai training center to support the explosive growth of low-fare carriers in China. Carbary said the company expects the simulator to start operating early next year.

Another challenge involves funding training in places where middle classes, although growing, remain underdeveloped. “One of the big issues if you’re a cadet in China is where are you going to get the money to become a pilot?” said Carbary. “So we’re really pushing the need for more scholarships, more investment in this piece of the market, and it can’t just come from industry. It’s got to be a collaborate approach [involving governments.]” 

To arrive at the pilot and technician numbers in its forecast, Boeing drew from its 2015 Current Market Outlook for airplane deliveries, released in June at the Paris Air Show, along with utilization rates, attrition rates and regional differences in staffing specific to aircraft type and regulatory requirements around the world. One region where Boeing’s forecast appears to reflect some growth moderation—the CIS countries—showed a decline in 20-year demand for pilots from 18,000 in last year’s forecast to 17,000 this year, largely due to geopolitical and economic pressures.

Apart from the 226,000 pilots required in the Asia-Pacific region, the forecast shows a need in North America and Europe for roughly 95,000 each. The Middle East will need another 60,000 pilots, according to the report, while demand in Latin America and Africa stands at 47,000 and 18,000, respectively.