Today's passenger jets are already something like 75% more fuel efficient than the jets of the early 1960s, and the physics of flying imposes a low ceiling on further advances.
Airline gas mileage has improved over the years, the result of filling more seats on each flight, replacing multiple trips on small planes with fewer trips on larger aircraft and replacing older planes with newer, more fuel-efficient jets.
The plane represented a big bet on new technology for Boeing: The plane's lightweight frame was to be built using mostly carbon-fiber composites, and it was to have an enhanced electrical system to power more systems and use less fuel than other jets.
He also likes Republic Airlines, which counts a lot of fuel-efficient Embraer jets among its 219-plane fleet.
Bangor also routinely does fuel stops for corporate jets that don't have the range to make it from Europe to points in the U.S. beyond the East Coast.
The combination of cheap jets with greater fuel efficiency and a critical mass of these critters in the sky can, in theory, lower the price per seat considerably.
Air carriers around the world are snapping up a new generation of Boeing jets that offer improved fuel-to-range ratios.
They have retired their old, energy-hogging jets and have invested in newer, more fuel-efficient models.
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Despite demands from airlines for better fuel consumption, the market for the existing narrow-body jets is booming again as airline profits recover and fleets age.
Because airfares are set by the operating costs of the least efficient planes in service, buyers of new jets are counting on the higher fares resulting from high jet fuel prices to allow them to pay off the loans taken out finance the new planes.
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Louis, a fuel-farm fire in Miami and a hailstorm in Dallas that damaged 50 jets.
Though some say the fuel smells like fast food, the cooking oil is safe for powering jumbo jets and provides exactly the same flying experience.
But airport costs like terminal rents and landing fees and even the expense of buying or leasing jets, pale in comparison to the two biggest expenses at airlines: labor and fuel.
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