PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Aircraft empty weight vs number of passenger seats
Old 15th Dec 2014, 01:34
  #26 (permalink)  
Wunwing
 
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Australia
Posts: 469
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
No I don't have any current data but a number off comments on this thread seem to be looking at a formula based on aircraft empty weight divided by number of seats and coming to a conclusion of efficiency.

Any modern widebody will have the same inbuilt "inefficiency" on that basis, as all longhaul widebodies will have a fair amount of underbelly freight capacity which may or may not be able to be utilised fully depending on range, market and airport limitations.

A B747 for instance has 3 underbelly freight doors and they are quite large compared to B737/A320. All B747s since the 100 have had powered rollers in the belly. All that requires substantially more wiring, power distribution controls etc than a small pax aircraft. However the fact that is is still there over 45 years of B747 production would seem to indicate that it generates substantial revenue beyond handling the "cans' for pax baggage which only fill one of the 3 holds.

So overall a simple empty weight divided by pax only tells part of the story and any conclusions based on that are far from accurate indication of aircraft type or airline profitability.
Wunwing is offline