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BA Whistleblower Reveals Tankering of Fuel - BBC

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BA Whistleblower Reveals Tankering of Fuel - BBC

Old 11th Nov 2019, 10:07
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If you truly wanted to save some fuel, how about banning duty free carriage on board and have it picked up at destination? Some items must get flown around the world for hundreds or thousands of hours before being sold.

I occasionally do a tankering flight but it is often to destinations where fuel supply is intermittent as well as expensive. As others have said, there are sound operational reasons for doing so sometimes and if we want to be serious, reducing holding delays and taxi times at busy airfields is much lower hanging fruit and is a win in all respects...
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 10:56
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What a load. Amazing how so many punters feel the need to comment on something they know nothing about. Here’s the news flash; All airlines have tankering policies !?!? Shocking isn’t it? Say you’re operating Sydney - Alice Springs. Alice Springs is in the middle of nowhere and JetA1 is extortionately expensive AND in limited supply. Of course you tanker fuel. You’re an idiot if you don’t. And much does it cost to transport fuel to the Alice in the first place ? Are you going to volunteer to pay a surcharge to NOT tanker ? People really need to get a grip on what they get outraged by.

Last edited by George Glass; 11th Nov 2019 at 11:08.
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 11:36
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Originally Posted by 733driver
I think those who dismiss the environmental effects of tankering outright are a bit short-sighted. I am a bit tired of the standard response "this is such a small issue. It makes very little difference in the grand scheme of things". Maybe true. But all the little areas where we waste resources combined do make a big difference. It's like every industry saying: "We only contribute x% to worldwide carbon emissions. Again, true, but if every single one of those industries cut their emissions by say 25% then the effect would be massive. And yes, Human consumption, animals etc emit a lot of carbon. But that should be no reason to not minimize emissions/use of finite resources were we can.

As an industry we have lot's of room for improvement without having to ban flying or making it prohibitively expensive. If, with the help of governments, we could fly optimum levels and direct routes more often, spend less time in holding and in queues for departure, and yes, perhaps had to tanker fuel less frequently, that would all help. Now, I'm sot suggesting airlines should be forced to buy expensive fuel instead of tankering, but if governments are serious about cutting emissions then maybe it should be illegal to sell fuel at such prices that economic tankering makes sense for the airline. Just a thought.
But you know that none cares for facts, don't you? It really does not matter how it is in reality or what can we do. We, as an industry, are just hated by "new communistic hippies" and they only think they want is to limit, ban, tax. They will not care about numbers. The problem is that we can hardly cut aviation emmisions by 25%. Well, we can easily cut energetic industry by more than 25% and it will be much more in total. But none cares. We hate flying now.
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 11:41
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Originally Posted by flyer4life


The policy at Air France (shorthaul at least) is to fly maximum speed for minimum flight times. You can often hear them in French asking ATC to order the aircraft ahead of them to speed up. That’s an entire airline with no interest in flying fuel efficient speeds.
Absolute nonsense. Not going to into the details of our fuel policy here, but typically we fly with a low cost index, sometimes CI=0 if we are ahead of schedule, When I joined from EZY I found both AF and EZY flew the same CI. If running late we may ask to speed up to salvage a few connections, but this is far from being the norm. Our fuel policy is in line with industry norm, but hey let’s not miss a good excuse to talk down the french or AF
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 11:41
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CO2 scare

After some 30 or 40 years of climate propaganda any impact of CO2 on climate has not been shown. There is a good chance that no evidence will ever appear.
The propaganda relies completely on so called projections through unsuitable guided and tuned models.
Making the subject of this thread, the CO2 scare, somewhat silly.
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 12:08
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All is now resolved

British Airways reviews fuel tankering.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-50365362
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 12:15
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Yet another no-news. When I see numbers like "same as 100,000 people in a year", I start to smell the rat. Every London bus emits enough greenhouse gas to fill the Atlantic ocean three times over. Go try to fact check this. Until news outlets like BBC are chasing "hot" stories written by bored teenagers instead of promoting proper research, this planet is doomed.
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 12:16
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One sided

From my experience working for a maintenance outfit at STN a few years ago, this is only part of the story. As someone said earlier in the thread, the fuel may be more expensive down route; it may also be of poor quality.

In addition airlines who pride themselves on quick (30 min) turnarounds will not be able to, as you can't refuel while pax are on board (unless the rules have changed), thus the turnaround would not be achievable.

So rather one-sided reporting in my opinion...
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 12:16
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This thread is utter garbage! Tankering has happened forever, period!
Any aviator will tell you they’ve burned more fuel than they’ve tankered in their entire career waiting at ANY holding point, at ANY airfield!

Absolute codswallop from all the snowflakes these days trying make a case!

OMAA
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 12:55
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Carbon Dioxide is really good stuff, we don't have enough of it. It is food for plants, which by photosynthesis release from it (and from water) the Oxygen we breathe.
The main effect of fossil fuel use has been to green the planet, feeding us and preventing famine. The effect is huge. NASA say "increase in leaves on plants and trees equivalent in area to two times the continental United States."
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard...greening-earth

It is also worth noting that there is no scientific proof whatsoever that CO2 acts as a "greenhouse gas" in the earth's atmosphere. There is no correlation between CO2 levels and planetary temperatures.
The Medieval Warming Period was some 1.5C warmer than the current one and the Roman Warming Period as much as 4C warmer, yet their CO2 levels were lower.

However there is a correlation between Milankovitch Cycles and global temperature. These are caused by scientifically proven variation to the Earth's orbit due to the gravitational pull of the planets.

Last edited by Eclectic; 11th Nov 2019 at 13:32.
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 13:15
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old, not bold,

Which comes back to my contention that devising a much more co-ordinated European ATM system would pay dividends in every way for efficiency, costs, emissions and time keeping. If the ATM system worked more as a whole, rather than a set of different national systems, 'going round and round in the hold ' as you say, waiting to land could be very much reduced. Heathrow uses holding to maximise runway throughput, but it could also be done by a Europe-wide metering system to adjust arrivel times with far less holding.

BUT, this needs Europe-wide co-operation, and politicians are not very good at that unfortunately.
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 13:31
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Originally Posted by Nomad2
The only beneficiary of fuel tankering is the airline. It doesn't lead to cheaper fares.
A reduction in costs, does not lead to a reduction of fares- rather it leads to an increase in profit.
Having said that, this Is pretty 'small beer', in the overall scheme of things.
Overall a reduction in Costs should lead to lower fares, especially as not refueling each turn-round maximises Asset Utilisation, reducing overhead allocation costs.
Agree it's not a direct consequence, but overall profitability and Income exceeding costs is what makes the industry financially sustainable (But perhaps not ecologically Sustainable!!)
But agree it is small fry!!
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 13:42
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There is something missing from the BBC articles and that is that tankering is done to some rather surprising places. Glasgow fuel is mentioned as being 25% more expensive than Heathrow.
https://www.theguardian.com/business...ma-revelations
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 13:57
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Originally Posted by OMAAbound
This thread is utter garbage! Tankering has happened forever, period!
Any aviator will tell you they’ve burned more fuel than they’ve tankered in their entire career waiting at ANY holding point, at ANY airfield!

Absolute codswallop from all the snowflakes these days trying make a case!

Out of interest, what do you think the snowflakes at Eurocontrol stand to gain from their scaremongering ?
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 13:59
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From the BBC article:
Eurocontrol, the body which coordinates air traffic control for Europe, has calculated that tankering in Europe resulted in 286,000 tonnes of extra fuel being burnt every year, and the emission of an additional 901,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.
Seems like the airline industry has introduced a matter creation scheme - burn 286,000 tonnes of fuel and get 901,000 tonnes of carbon doixide!
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 14:08
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It’s very basic organic chemistry. Each carbon atom from the fuel combines with two oxygen atoms from the air meaning the resulting waste product (CO2) is much heavier than the fuel. Likewise the very light hydrogen in the fuel combines with heavier oxygen at a ratio of 2:1 making water which is also heavier than the original fuel.

2 C12H26 + 37 O2 = 24 CO2 + 26 H2O

That brought on a cold shudder!
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 14:10
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If tankering becomes an issue, what about ultra long-haul? QF's Project Sunrise and similar operations will be the next target no doubt: massive fuel load, tiny payload fraction, handful of pampered pax etc etc.
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 14:12
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Originally Posted by EastMids
From the BBC article:

Seems like the airline industry has introduced a matter creation scheme - burn 286,000 tonnes of fuel and get 901,000 tonnes of carbon doixide!

Not really ..I've not checked the sums, I'm not about to, but in very very simplistic terms think of it as the combustion process "adding" atmospheric oxygen scooped up by the engine intakes to some of the carbon in fuel to produce the carbon dioxide, hence the mass increase.
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 14:21
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What about the cost of repeatedly lugging trolleys full of duty free booze and trinkets all over the world for sale on an aeroplane?

Why not ship the duty free goods once by an environmentally friendly means, and collect at your destination?
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Old 11th Nov 2019, 14:44
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Originally Posted by sixgee
What about the cost of repeatedly lugging trolleys full of duty free booze and trinkets all over the world for sale on an aeroplane?

Why not ship the duty free goods once by an environmentally friendly means, and collect at your destination?
When flying in Club Europe yesterday on a certain Big Airline, the seatback pocket included 1x Highlife 1x BusinessLife 1x HighLife SHOP 1x M&S Buy on Board Menu 1x Safety Card 1x Wifi Brochure 3x sick bags. *180 seats, how many kg of mainly-unread paper are they carrying around every day?
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