Which aircraft has a better fuel efficiency? – a case study in china

Abstract

Different aircraft have different load capacity and fuel consumption. Understanding which aircraft has better fuel efficiency is meaningful for energy conservation and reducing operation costs. This paper derives the relationship between fuel consumption and aircraft payload through the flight dynamics model for flights in which the flight distance is smaller than 3000 Km. The fuel consumption of the aircraft during different phases can be considered linearly positively correlated with the payload of the aircraft when other parameters are fixed. A case study is carried out on which aircraft has better fuel efficiency in China and verifies the relationship between fuel consumption and aircraft payload. It can be found that with the increase of the payload, the average fuel consumption decrease and smaller aircraft always have a smaller average fuel consumption at the same payload than the larger aircraft. The work can help with energy conservation and fleet planning for airlines.