I would think that the expense of aerial refueling would greatly exceed any possible benefit to civilian aviation.
Originally Posted by
Jalinth
I can't think of many commercial situations where mid-air refueling would make any economical sense. For any large airlines, a refueling stop is much cheaper than having to pay for a plane, pilots, and fuel to let a tanker plane work. If we couldn't fly to Australia directly, would you pay $3K to fly direct and pay for the tanker or $1.5K to fly a routing like SFO-HNL-SYD?
Do you know the operating cost of a civilian tanker? I don't. I'm pretty sure there is no such thing at the moment, so to know its cost is impossible. To assume it would be as expensive to operate as a military flight would greatly overestimate it, however.