Which stage of the flight consumes more fuel?

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What do you think is the stage of the flight that combustible consume? Today we are going to review an interesting analysis carried out by the consulting firm OAG.

Combustible, key piece of the puzzle that allows aviation to move in the world generating employment, trade and moving the economy of the regions, but there is a battle on the part of the industry: do the more sustainable aviation and green.

It is at this point that manufacturers and airlines work hard to make the industry more efficient, for example optimizing descents and advance the use of sustainable fuels, for instance.

The stage of the flight that consumes the most fuel

Looking for the optimization and reduction of the carbon footprint is that the question arises, which stage consumes more combustible? This is focused on reducing this consumption in order to, reduce CO2 emissions in industry.

Analyzing hundreds of data and flight information, AOG has been able to determine the stages with the highest fuel consumption, will it be take off, where more power is applied to the motors the stage of greater consumption? Let's see:

The 28 of January of 2022, AOG analyzed several flights from London Heathrow Airport (LHR) to a variety of destinations, using different aircraft, operated by different airlines and of different flight durations. The shortest flight was the Air France flight to Paris Charles de Gaulle airport (CDG) on an A319 plane, a solo flight 348 km and an expected duration of one hour and 20 door to door minutes. The longest flight was the Cathay Pacific flight to Hong Kong (HKG) using an A350, a flight of 12 hours and 5.500 km.

The other flights went to Athens (ATH), Dubai (DXB), Edinburgh (EDI), Ginebra (GVA), Helsinki (HEL), Lisboa (LIS), Madrid (MAD) and new york (JFK).

The model divides fuel consumption into six stages of flight: exit shoot, takeoff, ascent, cruise, approach and taxi-in. It is clear that the shorter the flight, plus, proportionally, non-cruise elements of the flight contribute. to total fuel use, but you can't escape the fact that on every flight, no matter the distance, the fuel used to take off is a relatively small fraction of the total fuel use.

for the longest flight, a Hong Kong, the cruise consumes the 96% of total fuel burned. For the flight to Dubai it is almost the same, since the 95% of fuel consumption is done simply while cruising. At the other end of the scale, cruise ships represent only the 62% of the total fuel consumption for the flight to Paris and the 68 % for the flight to Edinburgh.

Obviously, there is more to fuel consumption than simply the duration of a flight, as the graph above shows. Among the flights analyzed, it's the Dubai flight - not the longest flight to Hong Kong- which consumes more fuel. The reason is that the Dubai flight is operated with an A380 which, with a maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) from 575 tons, is significantly heavier than 777 to JFK and maybe twice as much as the A350 to HKG. Of course, also carries more passengers.

Finally and surprisingly, fuel consumption data shows that between the 2% and the 17% of fuel consumption goes to taxiing activities, which represents proportionally more fuel consumption in the shorter flights. It's no wonder many airlines and airports use tugs to move planes instead of needlessly burning kerosene while they're still on the ground..

Did you expect this result of the analysis?

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