cgtechuk

Whilst the motorway service stations pillage everyone for £1.60 a litre no thanks. Maybe if you left London once in a while you would realize that you need more than 100 miles.

SonTech

We can usually refuel our 737s (not Ryanair by the way) within our 50 minute minimum turnaround window for a trip to Greece and back but sometimes we have to wait for the fuel trucks when the airport is busy in the summer times.

bisonrav

For those interested, there are some great free reports from the IEA here:

https://www.iea.org/topics/energyefficiency/

The 2019 report is just out and I haven't looked at it much yet, the 2018 one is fairly easy to navigate and has interesting information on all segments, but transportation is key and there is a "special focus" section on aviation, so I recommend that as a starting point.

cgtechuk

Whilst the motorway service stations pillage everyone for £1.60 a litre no thanks. Pretty sure that those living outside of London wouldnt share your view

argonath

Then add a long detour due to a road closed etc which regularly happens up here

BahrainLad

A BA pilot was moaning about a scenario to me the other day. They'd left LHR for Scotland and were tankering round-trip fuel. At the last moment they were persuaded to take some standby crew who wanted to get home, one on the flight deck. As they approached the destination my friend starts to realise that with the extra pax - something like 400kg - they're going to be overweight. So he starts slowing down, deploying the speedbrakes, flaps early, gear down etc all in an effort to burn off just enough to get under MLW (all the while giving the jumpseater plenty of stick about them being too heavy). Then they're told they have to hold. So they land, and they've burnt off too much, so not only are they late they have to top up the tanks!

Madness.

citytom

Agree re sensible point on petrol floating - you could of course also google your assertion. Comparative weight of petrol is circa 25% less. So reducing an SUV's petrol tank from 60L to 15L - i.e. a 45L difference would save 33kg of max weight. Diesel would work out at circa 38kg.

Though even then you are assuming most people drive their cars around on a full tank (might be rental car familiarity), though of course in reality most people only refill under a quarter tank, so you are comparing a 30L difference at most, at which point you are getting dangerously close to the amount of weight I could save both cars and planes by eating sensibly.

You are also talking sub 1% of the car's total weight including passengers, at which point the fuel-burning detours for top-ups will easily outweigh any benefits.

Of course we could turn this into a fun challenge / article. Try driving a car with the kids from Luton Airport to Southampton, surviving on no less more than 15 litres of fuel without making a daft detour off the motorway - think traffic would dictate the feasibility of making it to Fleet Services :-). Not just the Scottish Highlands that suffer from a lack of Fuel Stations - applies to half the M25!

bisonrav

So if we've learned one thing from this thread, it's to do referral congas rather than clicking on dodgy blog links and gifting free transport cash to metropolitans who don't actually need to drive much...

gingerlucy

There are plenty of places in the world (and even in the UK) when 100 miles is in no way sufficient. I have been places in Nevada where it is 160+ miles to the next petrol station (and indeed had to drive half an our each way off our route to fill up as we wouldn't otherwise have had enough for the next leg either). Even in rural France on a weekend in August you struggle to find somewhere open and it can get a bit dicey and I'm sure rural Scotland can be similar.

So it won't work in other countries and if you proposed somehow limiting them for UK cars only that would require manufacturers to install different fuel tanks for different markets which leads to inefficiency in production, as well as the inability to take UK-market cars to other countries even for holidays.

bisonrav

Note also that average fuel loads are just over half a tank, assuming people fill up near empty. But we're now so far off topic, it'll take most of the Brent field output to fly us back.

LTN Phobia

Having more efficient air conditioning system may have a better effect than discouraging/banning tankering (the link is a video on BBC about a potentially substantial effect that more energy-efficient air conditioning system may have on the emission):

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us...ave-the-planet

Schind

You think there won't be holding when (if) the runway is built? OK - maybe not immediately but Heathrow are doing it to increase capacity, not to provide relief to overstrecthed runways. There'll be holding again in a couple of years when the slots are filled up.

V10

Having more efficient airconditioning AND stopping aviation practices that cause increased emissions would have a better effect still.

13901

Am I the only one who thinks that LHR will fill that one to the brim too?

argonath

What like tier point runs ?