Like frogs in hot water, we often realise that a crisis is upon us only when it is too late. But, for once, we have been given clear warning that the temperature has started rising for one of Britain’s most important industries.

Yang Guoqing, deputy chief of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC), said this week: “We encourage airlines to cancel or delay 2009 aircraft orders. It is the duty of airlines to cut capacity, defer plane orders, return leased aircraft and ground or sell older planes.”

This obscure bureaucrat has delivered an order to China’s airlines that could be devastating for Boeing, Airbus and Rolls-Royce and their hundreds of small suppliers.

China is regarded as the motherlode for the aerospace industry because the country’s airlines need to buy billions of dollars of new aircraft to meet the expected surge in demand for air travel. Airbus is so convinced of the impending sales bonanza that it has set up an assembly line in China, its first outside Europe. The statement from the CAAC this week suggests, however, that even China expects a severe downturn in demand for air travel.

Chinese carriers have an estimated 241 aircraft ordered for delivery this year — one quarter of the world total — and if these are cancelled or deferred, it will knock a huge hole in the prospects of the aerospace giants.

Falling demand for air travel, combined with increased difficulty in raising aircraft financing, could therefore spell serious trouble for the aerospace industry. There are growing fears that the manufacturers themselves will have to provide financing to airlines, which will divert investment from research and development divisions.

Airbus employs more than 10,000 people in the UK, Rolls-Royce a further 12,500 in Derby and their suppliers thousands more.

Aerospace is one of the few large manufacturing industries left in the UK and companies need to heed the warning from China now and brace themselves for a difficult year ahead.

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