Economic efficiency of a fuel stop

[ImageGear]

Following on from a comment made in History and Nostalgia, with todays modern aircraft, is it no longer economic to make a fuel stop, other than when exceeding the normal range of the aircraft?.

I note B787's, frequently doing around 13-14 hours non-stop across the South Pacific, no gas there I suppose but the Asia flights would be over or close to land most of the time.

Thanks in anticipation, :ok:

[FlightDetent]

I guess so. A fuel stop has the costs of:

. about 1,5 hrs of airframe utilization time
. about 0,5 hrs fuel burn
. full landing fees
. full ATC arrival / departure fees
. maintenance one more cycle on everything
. ground support cover in case something goes wrong
. risk of passangers getting all sorts of crazy ideas once half way

From another perspective: The people who finance developement of such capable aircraft, together with people who design them, surely did think about this already. And guess what, decided to build and sell them anyway. :)

[DaveReidUK]

Though those have to be offset against the potential revenue lost once you start to trade off payload against fuel. That trade-off will differ from route to route.

[Cough]

And also the lower revenue you'll get from the travelling public when they see the flight having a stop. It's a real disincentive to some...