How much more fuel does a plane use than a car?

A 4,000-mile flight, then, requires 20,000 gallons of fuel. Divided among roughly 400 passengers, that's 50 gallons of fuel to move each person aboard from, say, Chicago to London. A Honda Civic that gets 30 miles per gallon would need 133 gallons of fuel to make a trip of the same distance.



People Also Ask

While most people think driving a car is better for the environment than flying in an airplane, that's not necessarily true because airplane engines are getting much more efficient.

MORE DETAILS

At one time, gasoline was used in airplanes. But the need for a higher energy fuel made the aviation industry look for alternative fuels. With a Boeing 747 burning up to one gallon of fuel every second, it's lucky that kerosene-based jet fuel is cheaper than gasoline!

MORE DETAILS

So, if you're traveling with three or more people, driving is the better option, and here's why: Three people on the cross-country flight would account for 1.86 tons of carbon emissions (0.62 tons of CO2 x 3), compared to the total 1.26 tons of carbon the vehicle would produce (ignoring that the extra weight would ...

MORE DETAILS

As a rule of thumb for the Boeing 747, pilots either quote dump rates ranging within 1–2 tons per minute or reference a thumb formula of dump time = (dump weight / 2) + 5 in minutes.

MORE DETAILS

Can a wide body airliner land with a full fuel tank? Yes! But it is safer to land an aircraft below its published MLW.

MORE DETAILS

A plane like a Boeing 747 uses approximately 1 gallon (about 4 liters) of fuel every second. Over the course of a 10-hour flight, it might burn 36,000 gallons (150,000 liters). The 747 burns approximately 5 gallons of fuel per mile (12 liters of fuel per kilometer).

MORE DETAILS

In fact, unless you're looking to venture from Los Altos to LA off-road through state parks the whole way—in a Hummer with Tonka-truck mud tires—driving is generally greener than flying.

MORE DETAILS

Just exactly how bad is flying really? Air travel accounts for 2.5% of global carbon emissions. In the US, flying accounted for 8% of transportation emissions, but less than 3% of total carbon emissions.

MORE DETAILS

Airlines get an average of just under $189 of revenue for each passenger they fly, which include the base fare, ancillaries such as bag fees, fuel surcharges, and revenue for any cargo carried.

MORE DETAILS

As of Sep 22, 2023, the average annual pay for the Boeing 747 Pilot jobs category in Staten Island is $100,515 a year. Just in case you need a simple salary calculator, that works out to be approximately $48.32 an hour. This is the equivalent of $1,932/week or $8,376/month.

MORE DETAILS

A modern Boeing 747 can fly about 15,000 km (9,500 miles) when it's flying at 900 kmh (550 mph). This means it can fly non stop for almost 16 hours!

MORE DETAILS

It would seem strange that pilots would purposefully dump fuel from their aircraft at a time when fuel prices have skyrocketed. What's more bizarre is that they do it in the air while flying. Tossing fuel into the air is a safe procedure for a good reason. Additionally, it is not as wasteful as it seems.

MORE DETAILS

The electric passenger plane completed its maiden voyage on September 27, 2022, at Moses Lake airport in the US state of Washington. Alice is so far the only passenger aircraft developed from scratch and capable of flying with battery power.

MORE DETAILS