I have not heard of this term before for commercial airlines, but of course knew it has been a common practice for a while now to save money. One example of a British Airways flight to Italy carrying extra 3 metric tons of fuel to save $51 at the airport in Italy.

Now this article just focuses on carbon emissions as it’s a hot thing right now, but how much more money does actually cost to fly this much fuel????!!!! Based on distance and time wouldn’t it be more then $51?

If yes maybe airlines should have calculations made if flying more fuel is actually the answer to saving money if it’s minimal cost difference at another airport.

https://us.yahoo.com/news/airlines-flyi ... 09388.html

So there’s a guy... or group of guys who’s job this is at every airline. They know exactly to the pound how much extra it costs every mile.
3metric tons is about 6600lbs of fuel. Not a huge amount. But $50 is a $50.

If your airline flies (round numbers) 1000 flights a day and each one can make or save $50 because you brought some gas or got a better deal. It adds up quick.

SRQLOT wrote:

Based on distance and time wouldn’t it be more then $51?

That's $51 after you tally the extra consumption due to the increased weight. You fly from A to B with extra fuel, return back from B to A - and when you land, you have 51 extra dollars "in pocket".

SRQLOT wrote:

Now this article just focuses on carbon emissions as it’s a hot thing right now, but how much more money does actually cost to fly this much fuel????!!!!

Carrying a ton of fuel costs about as much as the a ton of Cargo. Now if i could only recall the lowest air cargo price I have ever seen ...

Based on distance and time wouldn’t it be more then $51?

I guess they calculate fuel cost savings minus cost to carry that fuel to get to 51 USD

Best regards
Thomas

I don't have an exact number or formula for this but the airlines use computer based algorithms structured for their individual suppliers and stage lengths. Not sure how common this is today with current market conditions but there was a time that we carried enough fuel from the west coast to HNL, that we just took a sip of fuel for the return trip as HNL was very expensive. This was in a 707-320C, Times have obviously changed since then.

They could reduce tankering by making the price of fuel cheaper. I don't support any of this so-called journalism. This is just an attempt to manipulate public perception so that when they impose another massive tax on aviation, people won't complain too much. If governments cared about the environment they wouldn't be flying around in their own personal 747s.

I hope they are also calculating the stress to the airplane of landing heavy. Not overweight, of course, but I'd love to know how they calculate "wear and tear" per flight.

Say the flight operates every day. At the end of the year that is $18651. Airlines make money by paying attention to little gains spread across a lot of flights.

peterinlisbon wrote:

They could reduce tankering by making the price of fuel cheaper.

Since the differences leveraged by tankering are quite obviously independent of crude oil prices, the same price difference would exist regardless of other effectors on fuel prices.
With cheaper fuel the cost of tankering, additional fuel to carry the payload fuel, would be lower, and hence cheaper fuel would lead to more tankering, not less, if there is any change.

Best regards
Thomas

TripleDelta wrote:

SRQLOT wrote:

Based on distance and time wouldn’t it be more then $51?

That's $51 after you tally the extra consumption due to the increased weight. You fly from A to B with extra fuel, return back from B to A - and when you land, you have 51 extra dollars "in pocket".

Ah ok thank you, I guess I read the article too fast, but rereading it doesn’t explain that the savings are after all the costs of carrying the extra fuel, especially to explain to non aviation crowd.

SRQLOT wrote:

I have not heard of this term before for commercial airlines, but of course knew it has been a common practice for a while now to save money.

As an aside, direct savings are not the only point of tankering. In short haul and regional ops, for example, not needing to refuel at the destination can shave 5-10 minutes off your ground time - very useful if you're expecting delays (slots) or are already running late.

There are also other reasons. When we started operations into a small backwoods airport with little traffic, the quality of the fuel available there (and especially the state of the storage tanks) was very poor; so even though we had a slight "out-of-pocket" fuel burn penalty, it was a no-brainer to carry all the fuel needed for the return leg.

SRQLOT wrote:

Ah ok thank you, I guess I read the article too fast, but rereading it doesn’t explain that the savings are after all the costs of carrying the extra fuel, especially to explain to non aviation crowd.

Likely because the author doesn't understand it him/herself, and merely jumped on the very fashionable "eco/bash airlines" bandwagon.

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

I hope they are also calculating the stress to the airplane of landing heavy. Not overweight, of course, but I'd love to know how they calculate "wear and tear" per flight.

Yes especially with the 737NG fork issue.

TripleDelta wrote:

SRQLOT wrote:

I have not heard of this term before for commercial airlines, but of course knew it has been a common practice for a while now to save money.

As an aside, direct savings are not the only point of tankering. In short haul and regional ops, for example, not needed to refuel at the destination can shave 5-10 minutes off your ground time - very useful if you're expecting delays (slots) or are already running late.

And if you don't have to fuel with pax on board to make the turn faster, you don't have to pay to the firefighters standing there with a truck, only in places that is required of course.

Best regards
Thomas

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

I hope they are also calculating the stress to the airplane of landing heavy. Not overweight, of course, but I'd love to know how they calculate "wear and tear" per flight.

If it's within manufacturer limits, it's a non issue. And after all, what's the difference between landing with a payload of 2000 kg and 2000 kg extra fuel - and landing with a payload of 4000 kg and no extra fuel?

Yes but even $51 on a flight is not insignificant in the cut throat world of short haul, as crazy as that might sound, and lets put aside the obvious savings such as quick turnaround, no delay at the air bridge etc, which could raise costs significantly on the leg.

Frankly I think the report is a load of nonsense headlining and BA are simply reacting to local market conditions. Of course you would buy fuel where it is cheaper and load up according to algorithm for the greatest efficiency taking into consideration fuel burn/weight etc. It is no different in Europe to drivers fuelling up their car where it is cheaper. E.g. the thousands who drive across the borders to Luxembourg to fill up their car where Diesel can be EUR0.35/ltr cheaper than in Germany/France/Belgium etc. In BA's case, and aviation as a whole, where fuel can be typically 25% of the cost base give or take, its a distinct competitive advantage to be as efficient in refuelling as possible.

As it stands, individual countries decide what tax to charge on fuel, and of course there will be regional differences in trade costs etc. Companies react accordingly. Instead of attacking BA and other airlines reacting to market conditions, the EU could impose a harmonised equal level of tax which would reduce the variation a bit and thus the number of flights in which this occurs. It will never be able to totally create zero differential but would reduce the difference somewhat. But this of course then gets into intra-EU squabbling about what level that tax should be etc, let alone the argument Brexiteers etc would give that the EU making a common taxation decision is loss of sovereignty etc etc blah blah blah despite the genuine harmonised improvements cooperation would give.

As ever, the answer to resolve economic inefficiencies such as the one fuel tanking highlights, should be a market based one ending the incentive, enticing local refuelling, rather than public slandering on social media which doesn't really deal with the issue. But then we live in 2019...

SRQLOT wrote:

If yes maybe airlines should have calculations made if flying more fuel is actually the answer to saving money if it’s minimal cost difference at another airport.

One other detail: airlines don't fly on the "YOLO LOL" model... the ops staff don't wake up in the morning and then randomly try out whatever they might have dreamed up. Everything they do is based on tons of calculations, dozens of graphs and about as many analyses. Their figures may be off in the real world if they used incorrect assumptions; but they definitely did not say "aw heck, go for it".

If anything, manufacturers and airlines produce tankering tables for their aircraft, with which you need 30 seconds to work out whether tankering for a particular flight makes financial sense.

It’s also the reason SQ gave up with the A340-500 non stop US flight.... they had to tanker so much fuel, just to run the ship

Just to make a quick note, thank you everyone, and yes I knew airlines fueled extra so they wouldn’t have to refuel at every short haul stop for quick turnaround, to save money or for other limitations. I think it was more the way the article was written.

I guess another question is that with aviation shaming now growing how can airlines defend themselves with this practice?

PSAatSAN4Ever wrote:

I hope they are also calculating the stress to the airplane of landing heavy. Not overweight, of course, but I'd love to know how they calculate "wear and tear" per flight.

I seriously doubt that data is tracked and factored into any life/cycle data. FWIW most aircraft that I have flown have better landing characteristics when heavier, than say light.

Tankering fuel has to be carefully done. For example, if have a 1st stage flight that usually has a full load of pax, their bags and cargo, you may be pushing limits of take off max weights so tankering can't be done. Recall as to a business jet in February, 2005 that crashed with no fatalities just off the end of the runway at NJ's Teterboro (TEB) airport. It had a full load of pax, their freight and tankered fuel as cheaper at TEB than at the airport based at (in Florida) or its destination.

You may have airports with frequent delays so may have to carry more fuel to cover. If making a series of short hops, then not needing to refuel saves time and as is said, time is money. Some airports may have more efficient fueling systems that may mean less need to tanker. Operations out of high/hot airports may mean not tankering so not to limit pax/bags/cargo load.

TripleDelta wrote:

SRQLOT wrote:

Ah ok thank you, I guess I read the article too fast, but rereading it doesn’t explain that the savings are after all the costs of carrying the extra fuel, especially to explain to non aviation crowd.

Likely because the author doesn't understand it him/herself, and merely jumped on the very fashionable "eco/bash airlines" bandwagon.

I thought the article was perfectly clear. I'd quibble with some wording, but the article is fine.

The airlines do this because they can save money. But their costs aren't inclusive of carbon emissions. If they had to pay the cost of those carbon emissions, then the practice would likely stop.

There's no 'bash airlines' bandwagon to hop on here; this practice burns more carbon in order to save some small amount of money - everyone is in agreement about that set of facts.

Specific numbers would depend on stage length, but generally the “cost to carry” tankered fuel is 10%. So if you carry an extra 1000lbs you will burn 100lbs just to carry it.

If I recall correctly from my Network Planning days... I think Southwest is (or was?) well known for fueling their 737s completely full at first flight out each day, allowing them shorter turns and (i assume slightly favorable fuel pricing?), resulting in consolidated D0, reduced delays and shorter turns. UAL/AA/DL all calculate FPF (fuel per flight) and refuel between each, except in unique cases. Correct me if I'm wrong

TUGMASTER wrote:

It’s also the reason SQ gave up with the A340-500 non stop US flight.... they had to tanker so much fuel, just to run the ship

That's not the definition of tankering that the OP is using here: carrying fuel for the return trip.

peterinlisbon wrote:

They could reduce tankering by making the price of fuel cheaper. I don't support any of this so-called journalism. This is just an attempt to manipulate public perception so that when they impose another massive tax on aviation, people won't complain too much. If governments cared about the environment they wouldn't be flying around in their own personal 747s.

Go ahead, look at aviation fuel taxes per liter in EU countries compared to road fuels, and tell us about massive taxes on aviation fuel. If the EU is serious about reducing CO2 emissions they to need to address greatly UNDERTAXED aviation fuels.

Economists and politicians have an easy fix to end the (rightly criticized for poor environmental practice) tankering of excess fuel for round trips: tax the excess unused fuel upon landing.

ltbewr wrote:

Tankering fuel has to be carefully done. For example, if have a 1st stage flight that usually has a full load of pax, their bags and cargo, you may be pushing limits of take off max weights so tankering can't be done. Recall as to a business jet in February, 2005 that crashed with no fatalities just off the end of the runway at NJ's Teterboro (TEB) airport. It had a full load of pax, their freight and tankered fuel as cheaper at TEB than at the airport based at (in Florida) or its destination.

You may have airports with frequent delays so may have to carry more fuel to cover. If making a series of short hops, then not needing to refuel saves time and as is said, time is money. Some airports may have more efficient fueling systems that may mean less need to tanker. Operations out of high/hot airports may mean not tankering so not to limit pax/bags/cargo load.

Except the problem wasn’t weight, it was improperly computed CoG, but don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.

GF

Dalmd88 wrote:

Say the flight operates every day. At the end of the year that is $18651. Airlines make money by paying attention to little gains spread across a lot of flights.

And what happens when one day there is a medical emergency or MX issue just after takeoff requiring a return to origin and dumping fuel? Are the odds of that factored into the $50? IMO $50 is too close for that much risk. Would probably need to be in the hundreds to justify it.

And I think the biggest savings would be in developing countries with subsidized fuel returning to developed countries with higher prices/taxes.

I wonder if airlines did this to Venezuela.

A usual "quick and dirty" rule of thumb for tankering is that you'll burn 4% of the extra weight per hour. Carry an extra 1000 pounds on a 2 hour leg, you burnt 80 extra pounds. Obviously as stage length increases the math gets more and more challenging.

frmrCapCadet wrote:

It would be interesting is someone could come up with real world figures, even if only for a few hypothetical flights.

ps res Hawaii, given that much of the world's oil is transported by ships why would Hawaii have more expensive oil (if they do)?

Most of what is shipped is what comes out of the ground. Most of what is burned by way of aviation or road for example is refined. What sort of refinery capacity do the islands have ?

MKIAZ wrote:

Would probably need to be in the hundreds to justify it.

If hundreds are needed to justify it, please find where this is done... 'cause I'm moving there ASAP, since somebody is obviously giving fuel away for free!

I've done tankering flights with a profit as low as USD 5. Was below Maximum Landing Mass the whole time. Non-issue & non-event.

This is just another money-grab. You always see this kind of thing on the news just before they add another tax.

Here in Sweden, on flights from LHR, fuel tankering was usually worth it, but the amount was very little, in the tens of dollars. But tankering in the winter could be expensive if it caused a wing deicing to remove the frost that the tankered fuel caused. So to save 50 USD, we paid 800 USD for deicing.
We had to remind Ops Planning every autumn to tell the computor to stop tankering fuel here.

TUGMASTER wrote:

It’s also the reason SQ gave up with the A340-500 non stop US flight.... they had to tanker so much fuel, just to run the ship

TUGMASTER, I don't know where you got your information, but SQ did NOT tanker fuel. There wasn't enough room! The fuel loaded consisted of the required fuel burn, plus contingency, reserve fuel, and Int'l reserve. They used a "short release" system where the flight was released to a certain point and if the fuel was at or above what was required at that point they continued. If not, they diverted and refueled. On a long haul such as SIN-EWR for every 1000kgs of fuel additional you carried, it required another 500kgs to do it. Tankering on that segment would not have saved any money at all.

Short and medium haul flights lend themselves to tankering. However, landing weight at the original destination becomes, sometimes, the limiting factor. If you have a flight that has a full pax load and a large amount of cargo, there isn't much room to tanker a whole bunch of fuel.

While I appreciate the carbon issue, there are other ways that could be implemented to reduce fuel burn thus reducing the carbon footprint.

MKIAZ wrote:

And what happens when one day there is a medical emergency or MX issue just after takeoff requiring a return to origin and dumping fuel?

You wouldn't be dumping fuel because your typical short-haul airplane doesn't have fuel dump capability anyhow, so this point is moot.

I believe on regional flying here in NZ, they fill the ATR's up fully and then do a few flights before refuelling; also into airports like ZQN (Queenstown) with high fuel costs they tanker fuel in the A320's as well. They wouldnt do it if it wasnt economic sense to do so.

The way to address this, as some have said, is to implement a CO2 tax on fossil fuels. That will force users to reduce their consumption in a way that makes the most economic sense, in this case making tankering relatively more expensive. Taxing excess leftover fuel might create perverse incentives, say in a place where trucking the fuel in costs a lot of CO2.

LH707330 wrote:

Taxing excess leftover fuel might create perverse incentives, say in a place where trucking the fuel in costs a lot of CO2.

So new question. How would whoever is charging this proposed tax know what the amount of excess fuel actually is. You certainly wouldn't be landing with almost no fuel on a regular basis when you take into consideration reserve fuel requirements.

AirKevin wrote:

LH707330 wrote:

Taxing excess leftover fuel might create perverse incentives, say in a place where trucking the fuel in costs a lot of CO2.

So new question. How would whoever is charging this proposed tax know what the amount of excess fuel actually is. You certainly wouldn't be landing with almost no fuel on a regular basis when you take into consideration reserve fuel requirements.

Dunno, not something that I think should be done for several reasons:

1. It would probably lead to worse outcomes than just a normal CO2 tax because an all-up one would likely drive better behavior overall
2. It would add potentially undue pressure on dispatchers and flight crew to minimize fuel carried
3. It would encourage pilots who have extra fuel due to savings, stronger-than-expected tailwinds, etc. to waste that fuel to get down to the magic number (perverse incentive) instead of landing with extra for the next trip
4. Enforcement might be difficult/cumbersome

If someone tasked me with doing it, I'd probably start with reserve requirements plus a CI on common routes, then have a progressively increasing level, but I'd have to thik about it. Again, I don't think we should do it....

Might be of interest to some. Those not wanting to read, basically the tanking of excess fuel causes airplanes to fly with extra weight, but with minimal monetary gain.

https://qz.com/1746196/fuel-tankering-s ... aily-brief

Not a very well thought out article.

How many public transport vehicles be it a taxi, ferry, train, bus, or a private vehicle only carries the fuel required for a single journey ? Why are airlines considered to be the villain here.

One of the reasons for higher prices at different airports is with limited supply, they discourage uplifts with increased prices as the infrastructure is not there. Some fuel companies also are the opposite, they will not even bother attending an aircraft unless they can uplift at least 10 tonnes to cover the cost of the final delivery into the aircraft.

How many public transport vehicles be it a taxi, ferry, train, bus, or a private vehicle only carries the fuel required for a single journey ? Why are airlines considered to be the villain here.

Good to see whataboutism as an argument to do nothing is alive and well here.

As one of the great polluters in the world, I'm pleased that airline management executives are even looking at this from a standpoint of sustainability and environmental impact. There are operational challenges to any system changes, but perhaps there is a better way of doing things and they should study that. The article sites incremental cost savings as a result of tankering, but what's to be said about the incremental benefits of change that can provide benefit to our environment?

$51 x 365 days= $18615 x 5 flights = $93000.....

I’d say it’s worth it....

The article is not well thought out because it makes the assumption that man made global warming or man made climate change is real and pins it on the airlines.

I mean it's a real religion but it's not a real thing.

backseatdriver wrote:

How many public transport vehicles be it a taxi, ferry, train, bus, or a private vehicle only carries the fuel required for a single journey ? Why are airlines considered to be the villain here.

Good to see whataboutism as an argument to do nothing is alive and well here.

As one of the great polluters in the world, I'm pleased that airline management executives are even looking at this from a standpoint of sustainability and environmental impact. There are operational challenges to any system changes, but perhaps there is a better way of doing things and they should study that. The article sites incremental cost savings as a result of tankering, but what's to be said about the incremental benefits of change that can provide benefit to our environment?

As usual, the scale of the issue is to be considered. We're talking about single digit percentage (if not fraction of that) of extra fuel burn. There is also a flip side of a coin - e.g. faster turnarounds which means fewer planes needed to fly the schedule.
Next, one may consider what makes fuel more expensive at a certain locations. Do those factors affect emissions and pollution as well?
Last, but not the least.... Consider impact of used network bandwidth / server operation / user terminal opeation and associated power consumption spend on this discussion. How that compares to fuel burn due to tankering?

Babyshark wrote:

The article is not well thought out because it makes the assumption that man made global warming

That’s how you loose all credibility. Any global warming article assumes this is real since it is a proven fact. But I agree that this is an odd argument.

Also, why does everyone feel so attacked and triggered by environmentalists in every thread about them. They do point out areas we can improve in. They are not going to ban air travel

Babyshark wrote:

The article is not well thought out because it makes the assumption that man made global warming or man made climate change is real and pins it on the airlines.

I mean it's a real religion but it's not a real thing.

Man made global warming/climate change isn't really an assumption, it's a proven fact at this point. Scientific community is in consensus and your opinion doesn't matter.

Aircraft exhaust contribute about ~10% (depending on various sources) of total transportation emissions, which in turn contribute about 30% of total emissions, therefore aircraft ultimately contribute about 3% of total greenhouse gas emissions. From statistical point of view I agree that going after airline industry isn't particularly fair in this regard. Improvements can be made, sure, but at the end of the day there are vastly superior sources of greenhouse emissions that drive co2 levels and climate change.

-Mikhail

This thread started as the 'cost of tankering', but has now morphed into the carbon emitted by flying around with extra fuel.

Meanwhile there is another active thread about LHR. If you have a post 6am arrival slot they will not let you land before the 6am curfew. How is it ok to make a plane circle for 30-45 min because favorable winds make them too early? What is more important noise or the pollution this extra flying creates?