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Old 23rd May 2008, 12:06 PM
Rhys Xanthis Rhys Xanthis is offline
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Default "Passenger Planes on go-slow"

http://www.news.com.au/travel/story/...014090,00.html

Quote:
QANTAS and Jetstar planes are flying more slowly to save fuel in a desperate attempt to reduce the soaring jet fuel costs threatening airline profits.

Virgin Blue is also considering slowing down its planes during descent as a way of cutting fuel use. Jetstar has been flying more slowly since last month, adding six minutes to the length of flights from the east coast to Perth and two minutes on to flights from Sydney to either Brisbane or Melbourne, The Australian reports.

A spokesman for Qantas, which owns Jetstar, last night confirmed that its own planes had also been using "variable speed" as a "fuel conservation initiative" and said the airline had been doing this for the past two years.

The unannounced moves, which follow similar actions by US airlines, are expected to save the carriers millions of dollars and reduce upward pressure on airfares.

The revelation comes as the oil price reached a record $US133 ($138) a barrel yesterday, placing further pressure on airline fuel costs and profits.

The spike in oil has also driven petrol prices past $1.60 a litre this week, with forecasts of $1.70 next month, fuelling the political debate over the Coalition's promise to cut the petrol excise by 5c a litre. Economists, however, believe crude could soon fall back to $US100, taking pressure off petrol and aviation fuel prices.

The rising cost of jet fuel has once again prompted Qantas to increase the price of its airfares.

Qantas said yesterday its international airfares would rise by about 4 per cent and domestic fares by about 3 per cent for tickets issued in Australia from June 4. The increases follow hikes of about 3per cent for international fares and 3.5per cent for domestic fares earlier this month.

And in the US, cost pressures have become so extreme that American Airlines will now charge $US15 for checked baggage to help offset rising fuel prices.

Jetstar spokesman Simon Westaway yesterday confirmed to The Australian that a trial scheme to fly more slowly had been under way since last month as a means of combating record fuel prices, which have soared by 68 per cent in the past 12 months.

"The challenge for airlines is that fuel costs are at record levels," he said. "We have been conducting a trial where aircraft flights are taking a bit longer and burning less fuel. Early indications are that we are seeing positive savings in terms of fuel."

The move has involved Jetstar pilots reducing the average cruise speed of Airbus A320s from 863km/h to 843km/h.

These new speeds apply to all domestic Jetstar flights as well as Jetstar flights to New Zealand and may soon be extended to long-haul international flights.

Virgin Blue spokeswoman Heather Jeffrey said the company was actively exploring ways to reduce fuel use and had recently fitted winglets to all aircraft to reduce aerodynamic drag and therefore fuel use. Virgin had not slowed down its cruising speeds but was examining slowing down its speed of descent to save fuel.

A Qantas spokesman said the airline had saved fuel by using "variable speeds", which he said meant a marginal slowdown in speed.
Interesting measure to save fuel.
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  #2  
Old 23rd May 2008, 01:16 PM
Lukas M Lukas M is offline
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I got around 5 new reservation bookings from TT over the last month saying they have added 5mins to their schedules. I take it they have followed suit
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Old 23rd May 2008, 02:13 PM
Adrian B Adrian B is offline
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Some questiosn regarding this issue.

How can adding 5 minutes make a decent impact on fuel conservation?
Would I be correct in saying that the savings can be made by either having a reduced cruise speed, or finding altitude conditons / prevailing winds providing faster ground speed?.

I would have thought that a more gradual reduction from cruise speed to approach speed, as opposed to a more sudden deceleration (constant decel the speedbrake etc)would save more fuel?

Isnt this all out the window when it comes to spacing by approach controllers, slots and the like?

As per AA, are their any a/c that could be parked due to excessive consumption / or changed to different routes?
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Old 23rd May 2008, 04:07 PM
Chris Roope Chris Roope is offline
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Speaking for the 767.
Cruise has been reduced from Cost Index 40 to 20.
Descent has been slowed from 290kts to Econ speed, usually 265kts.
Savings from this are quite small on an individual flight basis, but across a whole fleet on an annual basis can be quite large.
And yes, we 'waste' far far more fuel due to congestion than we could ever hope to save by slowing down.
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Old 23rd May 2008, 04:11 PM
Rhys Xanthis Rhys Xanthis is offline
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Adrian,

I think we will see the 747-300's on the PER-MEL/SYD pulled out as soon as possible, despite other things like age, they suck up a lot of fuel
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Old 23rd May 2008, 07:51 PM
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Brendan Lawrence Brendan Lawrence is offline
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Definitely noticed this on my sectors over the last month or so. One of my captains last week explained to us in briefing that the reason for our OOL-SYD flight now just topping the 1 hr mark, rising to 64 min (normally about 56-58 min), was because of a go-slow FSO issued to all tech crew.

I asked about the Cost Index used (a time vs cost measure which affects the cruise speed depending on what number is input) and it has been dropped from an already low 30 down to just 10. That puts our cruise speed around Mach 0.76 whereas normal cruise speed for the A320 is about 0.78.

If by doing this it adds only 2-6 minutes to total flight time, which is hardly noticeable, but can in turn save a lot of dollars in fuel costs then why not.
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