7000 lbs of fuel
 

Waiting for my YUL-JFK I overheard them ask for 7000 lbs of fuel to be loaded onto the plane. Seemed like a lot and I was trying to figure out how much a gallon weighed (I was clearly bored as the flight was delayed due to the FAA meltdown)..anyway..got on the flight and there are only 7 paxs total on this flight (crj50)...which I haven't seen in years- esp w so much reduction in capacity. Anyway, at at least 1000 gals of jet fuel per pax to get home..I almost feel guilty (talk about a carbon footprint!). I know the plane has to get back in order to not mess up the schedule, but it seems like it would have made sense to cancel due to faa mess and load everyone up in the AM- they probably could have denied hotel and blamed it on faa or weather. I used to fly usair and guarantee they would have done the same. (Actually their flight would have been cancelled because their crabby GA felt like it). Anyway.. Just an interesting observation..props to delta for getting me home tonight :-)

1 gallon = approx 6.7 lbs

what's the fuel burn rate at cruise on that thing?

A gallon of Jet A weights 6.84 pounds. 7000 pounds is 1,023 gallons.

1000 gallons per passenger? I don't think so. For 7 passengers, that would add up to almost 48,000 pounds just for fuel. The max. takeoff weight of a CRJ-200 is 53,000 pounds.

Never have flown the CRJ. If I remember correctly (this is going back 2 yrs) the ERJ burned about 1300lbs/hr per engine in cruise

In comparison, the 767 cruising at .80 with a full load of pax will burn about 4000lbs/hr per side

As this is not DL-specific, I am moving the thread to TravelBuzz.
Obscure2k
Delta Moderator

i would guess there to be around 20-30 planes landing at dca in the middle of the night(12m to 3am). i certainly would guess they are coming in mt, for the early am rush.

Probably doesn't apply in your example, but I've been told that in some situations aircraft will buy more fuel than needed if it's cheaper in one jurisdiction than other. For example, I've been told that a flight going YYC -> YVR -> YYC will buy enough fuel in YYC for the return trip, because it's cheaper to gas up in YYC than YVR.

Where did you come up with 6.84. Are you correcting for temp deviation? The standard average is 6.7.

GA do not have the authority to cancel a flight.