Is there a way to make airplanes more fuel efficient?

Jennifer McClelland | RSS | Tue, Jul 07 2009 | 0 Comments

Airplanes are expensive. In my opinion, they’re expensive to fly on, they’re expensive to maintain, they’re expensive to staff, and they’re expensive to fill up with jet fuel. So, while the airline industry is hurting from the current recession, they are all trying to find ways to cut back on the cost of jet fuel to make the most out of the tickets they are selling.

MSNBC has an article out on its website that uses American Airlines and Scott Turner as an example. Turner is an employee of American Airlines that is used to try to make sure the airline uses all of its fuel efficiently as possible. He is the manager of flight operations efficiency and he can hear money being spent. The program he runs, Fuel Smart, is trying to save the company money.

When jet fuel cost around $3.85 a gallon last July (when the article was written), it cost the airline in the neighborhood of $77,000 to fill up a Boeing 767, a plane that is typically used for cross country trips.

So, this is when airlines started putting in first checked bag fees. The reason? For every pound of weight the plane can eliminate, the company saves 14,000 gallons of fuel a year. When the baggage fees were announced, the airline also started reducing the amount of water on board, putting new food carts in the cabins that weighed 17 pounds less, and using decals on the exterior of the plane instead of paint (which would trip 400 pounds off each plane). It also took steps to move weight in the plane around. There is a load-planning department that tells baggage handlers how to put bags on the plane to make the plane like a “seesaw” and it has the most fuel efficient center of gravity.

While that may not sound like things that are going to save the company as much as it costs to work on, if you move the center of gravy back 11 inches on a MD-80, .5% fuel is saved and on an annual basis that equates to $10 million according to Penny Williamson, the manager of the load planning department.

I kind of wonder if airlines are still doing things to help reduce the amount of fuel that each jet uses. I do know that they are using smaller planes and more connections than they used to. I used to be able to book a flight on US Airways from Memphis to Washington D.C. and fly on a Boeing 727, but now the same flight can only be taken on a regional jet and it stops in Charlotte, NC.

Related posts:
The airlines have decided to gouge you during the holidays this year.
When did British Airways Become A Discount Airline?

Tags: company money, american airlines, airline industry