I do understand the theory that carrying fuel costs fuel but how much does carrying extra really cost?
Let’s say that B737 has TOW is at 65,500 kgs instead of 65,000 kgs. Approximately, how much extra fuel would be consumed on a 1000 mile sector? I have to say that in my days as a BAe146 pilot, I never could detect any difference when carrying that little bit extra.
Jack, it's a good question to ask. On the B737-800 you're looking at circa 20/30 kg per hour per tonne. Not much on an individual flight but a Company like Ryanair operating circa 1,000 flights per day every day tots up to quite a bit of gas and therefore money!
But we are not talking about carrying extra fuel on
every flight are we but just those where it is clearly prudent to do so? OK it won't be always necessary but perhaps we should remember that these machines don't run very well on air and that accidents are expensive too!