What do you think of this on a Sunday?
(That I currently have too much time on my hands is not an acceptable answer
, or at the very least not one I want to hear!)
I just asked my wife to have a look at it and her response was "Who the hell cares?".
Thanks, future
ex-Mrs8534.
A ranking of BA long-haul aircraft by fuel efficiency.
Here are the assumptions:
1. The most common variants of each type in use (or planned for conversion):
B788 Y136 W37 J31
B789 Y127 W39 J42 F8
B781 Y165 W35 J48 F8
A380 Y303 W55 J97 F14
A350 Y219 W56 J56
B772 Y138 W40 J49 F8
B773 Y132 W40 J76 F8
2. The approximate hourly revenue from fares in each class as £/hr based on available base bucket fares on LHR-JFK return at approx 3 months out (this is very likely to be incorrect but perhaps a reasonable start for the multipliers in each class, and obviously doesn't really take account of a propensity for last-minute high fare bookings in F and J on certain routes):
Y £28/hr
W £56/hr
J £162/hr
F £207/hr
3. The fuel burn rates on each aircraft at cruise, fully loaded (kg/hr):
B788 4900 kg/hr
B789 5600 kg/hr
B781 6200 kg/hr
A380 11500 kg/hr
A350 5800 kg/hr
B772 6630 kg/hr
B773 7500 kg/hr
So using some simple maths you can then calculate the fuel burn (kg) / £ revenue / hr and so rank the aircraft:
- A350 0.316 kg/£/hr
- B773 0.377 kg/£/hr
- A380 0.381 kg/£/hr
- B781 0.387 kg/£/hr
- B789 0.394 kg/£/hr
- B772 0.422 kg/£/hr
- B788 0.450 kg/£/hr
Now, the other assumption above, of course, is that all aircraft on all routes have the same load factor (obviously not the case) or that the class revenue multipliers are the same across all routes (also obviously not the case).
But it is something, and if you have a better way to calculate then I would love to hear about it.
I thought some things were interesting 1. how potentially fuel efficient the B773 is, 2. how potentially inefficient the B788 is (this makes me think that there is an incorrect figure hiding in this frame but I can't see it myself), and 3. how the A350 appears to be much, much better than everything else.
If airlines pay approximately £0.65 per litre of JetA1 then based on the above they are paying between £0.14 and £0.29 in fuel costs per £ of revenue. I think I have heard previously that fuel makes up 20-25% of airline operating costs so not perfect but perhaps in the right ballpark?