Originally Posted by
FWAAA
On an 8 hour 777 flight, each additional pound of payload requires about a quarter pound of fuel. So a 200 pound duty free cart (WAG as to weight) would cost about 50 pounds of additional fuel. On top of that, that extra fuel requires some fuel to carry it, so perhaps 67 pounds, or about 10 gallons. At $4/gal, that's about $40 to carry the duty free cart.
Thanks for this info (as well as thanks to the other math wizzes such as
astanley). Highly interesting! So if I extrapolate correctly, transporting my 185-pound body across the Atlantic nowadays costs around $20 more than when fuel cost $2 a gallon (let's not dicker about the 15-lbs difference since these are ballpark figures anyhow); add to that another 75 lbs of luggage, and we're at around $35, or $70 RT. Seems to me all those fare increases and nickel-and-dime charges add up to more than that. So, where is the fault in my logic? Or are we not just taking a ride but rather are taken for a ride?
Similarly, the 2.25 gallons of beer in a case of Miller Light that now sells for $144 on board weighs somewhere around 10 lbs, give or take a bit. I'd assume that the wholesale cost that AA pays for that case is in the single digits. The fuel cost to haul the suds to Europe is less than $4, just eyeballing the numbers. That translates into a per-can cost of around two-quarters. Let's see, 50 cents vs. six bucks is about a 1,200% mark-up, correct? Hmmm...
I can hardly wait to see how my post will be dissected and torn to shreds, because there MUST be something wrong with my reasoning--AA wouldn't stick it to us like
that.
