If you’ve filled up your car at a gas station lately, you know first-hand that gas prices are high. Imagine what it costs to fuel a large passenger jet.

There is an interesting article on the Wall Street Journal’s website about the lengths to which airlines are going to conserve fuel and reduce costs: Sparing Fliers Even Higher Airfares (WSJ.com).

In addition to describing Southwest’s bold and successful jet fuel hedge — paying for fuel last year that it needs now — the article describes some of the other tactics that airlines are taking to reduce fuel costs, including the following:

• United lowered the cruise speed on some of its planes to save fuel.
• Several airlines put life vests on more planes so they can fly more-direct routes over water, often on trips into and out of Florida.
• A few airlines have purchased big tractors to move planes to maintenance hangars rather than taxiing to them with power from the planes’ engines.
• The FAA reduced the vertical separation — the minimum distance planes must keep when flying above or below one another — to 1,000 feet from 2,000 at cruising altitudes.
• Alaska Airlines said it was saving $10,000 a year in fuel by taking five magazines off each plane.
• Airlines ripped phones out of the seat backs since they weren’t being used anymore, and carry less water on board to reduce weight.

This entry was posted by Steve on Tuesday, June 6th, 2006 at 9:54 am and is filed under General, Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.