Fuel Saving Tips: Airline Edition
No matter their design or model, all aircraft require airplane fuel to achieve flight. This makes fuel an extreme necessity, but the price of fuel is not a fixed point. Prices increased twenty two percent over the course of 2018 and accounted for 20% of air companies overall operating cost. Airlines can do their best to avoid these hefty prices by becoming more fuel efficient. However, there needs to be a balance between fuel economy and consistent on-time operations.
There are huge discrepancies between the most and least efficient airlines. The least efficient operators used fifty one percent more fuel per passenger kilometer than the most efficient operators on Trans-Atlantic paths.
The most common factors affecting airplane fuel efficiency are actually outside of the airline’s control. These include size and shape of the aircraft, age and overall efficiency of the aircraft engine, number of passengers, aircraft’s overall weight, and external factors such as wind and temperature. These may be out of the pilot or airlines hands but the small changes that can be made to fuel economy can save millions.
One method to decrease fuel loss is by flying a more efficient route. Pilots can take advantage of shortcuts and requesting takeoff and landing trajectories to save fuel. Another method is knowing the layout of the airport and requesting the best way to fly in and out, a taxi from the runway to the terminal, or flying a holding pattern will make for less fuel using time. Learning different strategies to maximize the amount of fuel onboard and minimize tardy flights is the best money saving strategy pilots can implement.
In our highly technological world, there are data analytic technologies to do the hard calculations to maximize fuel efficiency without compromising on time performance. GoDirect Flight Efficiency helps integrate these fuel efficiency motives into tips and tricks. GoDirect provides historical flight paths, information on airports, and flight plans based on winds and temperature trends that may all help save time and in return fuel. This application is an essential tool to help all pilots be proactive on fuel economy. GoDirect has helped airlines save 5% when using these tools as opposed to not.
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