Since others have asked how much fuel a jet burns, how much do they pay for it?

Question

I have seen that a 747 holds 50,000 gallons of fuel. And it holds about 350 people. Well if they all paid $1000 for a ticket, that would be $350,000. in the airlines pocket. Now if the airline pays $4.00 a gallon for fuel. 50,000 gallons would cost them $200,000. So that is only $150,000 , to pay for the plane and the crew and profit, landing fees etc. Since most airline tickets are less, something doesn't add up. So they must be getting subsidized fuel allowance. I have to ask why the continue to use such a fuel guzzling engine? When there are much more efficient engines to use, but they would have to regress to propellers again.

Answer 1

One big difference between prices posted and prices pain:  Airlines don't pay tax on fuel.  While private jet operators are paying $5-6 per gallon, your average airline is paying about $2.80-3.00 per gallon right now.  Expect that to increase significantly however.

Answer 2

Yes, they can hold that much, but they don't use that much on each trip.  

A 747-400 that flies 3,500 statute miles and carries 126,000 pounds of fuel will consume an average of five gallons per mile, or 17,000 gallons.  

1 barrel of jet fuel currently costs $143:

http://www.iata.org/whatwedo/economics/f...

42 gallons to a barrel = about $3.40/gallon.

So on that 3,500 mile trip, their fuel cost would be about $57,000.

Answer 3

They are plenty efficient enough. If you divide the fuel used by the number of passengers they get over 80mpg per person.

Their engines have a excellent specific fuel consumption of about 0.4, which is 5 times less than planes used 25 years ago.

Answer 4

I work at a FBO...at the Current Moment out Jet Fuel is 5.73 per gallon you can check out local fuel prices at Airnav.com

Answer 5

$4.06/gal at Greenville, South Carolina

Answer 6

Ah you've learned something. Never by airline stocks. The ticket prices must go way up or there will not be airlines in the future. So be ready because a bunch of airplanes are gonna be parked, removing those seats as supply. When we demand more seats the ticket price will rise. Then as it was before deregulation, only the wealthy and business people will be able to afford to fly. Simple really.

Answer 7

It's a common myth that jet engines are fuel guzzlers.

In reality, jet fuel is cheaper than gasoline (it's basically kerosene, or lighter fluid with some additives for performance).

And jet engines produce more thrust per weight, allowing for a very high specific thrust compared to gasoline engines.

And most commerical propeller aircraft are different variations of gas turbine engines. e.g. turboprop. So they are jet powered anyway.

Like someone said earlier, if your ticket price isn't $1000, you're probably not going to travel to Japan from California. Airliners only take only the required amount of fuel, hardly the maximum amount.

HOWEVER, a jet engine does guzzle fuel when it's sitting on the taxiway waiting to takeoff, because they don't like idling, which is why our cars don't have them.