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Planes are actually surprisingly fuel efficient. The short haul flights in Europe are often served by Airbus A320 or A321 Neo, with fuel consumption per seat at

Planes are actually surprisingly fuel efficient. The short haul flights in Europe are often served by Airbus A320 or A321 Neo, with fuel consumption per seat at 2.19 L/100 km. A mid-sized petrol-powered car consumes three times as much. And that figure ignores that planes take a straight route - taking that into account, the emissions are close to a single-occupant electric car

rbanffy 5y ago
> the emissions are close to a single-occupant electric car I'd imagine the emissions would be infinitely greater than an electric car. For an ICE car with two people, you'd be closer.
- pilsetnieks 5y ago
  I think they mean the emissions from generating all that electricity, which isn't always clean. You'll get a lot of hydro and renewables in some countries at some times but then also coal and gas at other times.
- hollerith 5y ago
  >the emissions would be infinitely greater than an electric car. Not if you include the emissions caused by generating the electricity.
  - rbanffy 5y ago
    The point is this is not a useful metric, because it depends on something that varies from place to place and from time to time.
maigret 5y ago
The thing is that the chemical effects involved at the altitude airline planes fly is way more greenhouse impactful that the same consumption for a car, so you can’t compare that way. Also, trains are way better than this. French trains drive you around on nuclear energy.
- usrusr 5y ago
  But that increased impact is a short term difference, right? The changes to air composition we cause by digging up in a few decades what had been sequestered off in millions of years are forever changes.
  - maigret 5y ago
    Good questions, I don’t know enough details. CO2 stays in the air for a long time, but not forever either. For sure though, it’s absorbed way too slowly than what we’re outputting now.
jstsch 5y ago
That figure excludes take off and landing, which adds quite a bit on short haul flights.
- selectodude 5y ago
  No it doesn’t. Landing is far more efficient.
- LegitShady 5y ago
  why does landing take more fuel?
  - EdwardDiego 5y ago
    Planes are most efficient at high altitude. Landing necessarily involves slowly descending into thicker atmosphere - well, a good landing, anyway.
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      At a slowing speed and typically at near-idle thrust. The aircraft exchanges gravitational potential energy for velocity through most of the descent. The only high-trust portions are when reverse thrusters are engaged, typically for a few seconds following landing, or if TOGO power is invoked for an aborted approach.
      - EdwardDiego 5y ago
        You've never been on a plane that had to enter a holding pattern?
        dredmorbius 5y ago
        Which is effectively level flight / continued cruise, a low-power flight segment, not a high-powered one. That last would only apply if the aircraft had aborted an approach, which typically gives priority. Again: the original claim was that both take-off and landing were high-fuel-consumption flight segments. That's untrue. Under normal conditions only take-off is, and even most deviations from a nominal approach have a fairly minor impact. You're going to extreme lengths to avoid admitting this, and are making the issue personal to boot. Any particular reason for that? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29186605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29186605
ajuc 5y ago
> A mid-sized petrol-powered car consumes three times as much. Average ICE bus consumes order of magnitude less per seat than planes. The only reason planes win vs cars is that cars aren't public transport and planes are. So you divide by many more seats.
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  Try taking 1000km trip on a diesel bus once and tell me if that metric matters to anyone.
  - KronisLV 5y ago
    You know, I've actually done a few multi day trips by bus, around Croatia and its many places to visit (all the way from Plitvička Jezera to Baska, Krk and Vrbnik, then over to Venice), as well as Egypt (Hurghada to Luxor and later to Cairo). Oh and also a bit around Norway (though i only have Flåm tagged on my map, don't remember the route). I would say that longer trips by bus are not as unpleasant as you might suggest - as long as you don't attempt to do them in one go, but rather make stops along the way and get some fresh air, walk around and stretch, get something to eat, or maybe do some shopping if needed. There's probably something to be said about travelling more slowly and enjoying the locales along the way and maybe using motels for the longer trips, as opposed to viewing travel as purely getting from point A to point B as fast as possible. Of course, to be honest, that might not always be possible either in our fast paced culture. Now, there can be certain drawbacks in practice: - certain places will only have old buses, so no Wi-Fi - for some reason many buses don't have USB outlets for charging - many buses also disallow you to recline your seat, what's up with that? - some of the older buses also have pretty poor AC, then again, the weather in Egypt was pretty hot to begin with - for some reason the head rests are always smaller when compared to those in planes, making sleeping less comfortable - some of the drivers really love to drive in ways that appear unsafe to the passenger (perhaps due to the long wheelbase and suspension) - this feels especially uncomfortable mountainous roads In short, try to take the newer buses whenever that's possible but otherwise just hope that the old ones will get replaced eventually. Though personally I'd still say that trains feel like the safest mode of travel, followed by buses and then planes feeling the least safe of all, regardless of what engineering excellence goes into making them. That's enough to sway my personal choice. And if that's somehow better for the environment, then why not? Plus, the food in roadside eateries seems better than airplane food.
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pacificmint 5y ago
> fuel consumption per seat at 2.19 L/100 km. A mid-sized petrol-powered car consumes three times as much. It seems like you are comparing fuel per seat for planes with fuel per vehicle for cars. At five seats, that would be equivalent to 11 l/100km, which almost all modern cars should beat. Even if you only count four seats for the car, it would still be 8.8 l/100km, which many cars can beat.
- HWR_14 5y ago
  I would expect planes to be usually almost full. I would expect passenger cars to average 2 people per car.
  - Tepix 5y ago
    If you want to compare a large passenger plane to a land based vehicle you should pick a train. Both the train and the plane can only go certain routes and are mass transit vehicles. The emission of gases in the upper atmosphere by airplanes also worsens their climate heating effect by 300% (source: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/umwelttipps-fuer-den-alltag/mobilitaet/flugreisen#hintergrund https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/umwelttipps-fuer-den-alltag/m...)
    - dredmorbius 5y ago
      I'd agree on the basis of efficiency arguments. If you want to discuss actual practice, though, 75% of European international ground travel is by private car, not train. That said, we can simply state the per-passenger-distance efficiency of different transport modes and leave the "you shoulds" to others.
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      I agree, we should switch to trains where feasible. I'd like to see more long-haul trains set up with affordable sleeper cars. But most land transportation over long distance is still by car.
- lmm 5y ago
  But what's the average occupation rate of the plane and the car?
jokoon 5y ago
using air travel is like driving a small individual car to reach the same destination. the car will travel slower, but the carbon stays the same. not really efficient.

rbanffy 5y ago

> the emissions are close to a single-occupant electric car I'd imagine the emissions would be infinitely greater than an electric car. For an ICE car with two people, you'd be closer.

pilsetnieks 5y ago
I think they mean the emissions from generating all that electricity, which isn't always clean. You'll get a lot of hydro and renewables in some countries at some times but then also coal and gas at other times.
hollerith 5y ago
>the emissions would be infinitely greater than an electric car. Not if you include the emissions caused by generating the electricity.
- rbanffy 5y ago
  The point is this is not a useful metric, because it depends on something that varies from place to place and from time to time.

maigret 5y ago

The thing is that the chemical effects involved at the altitude airline planes fly is way more greenhouse impactful that the same consumption for a car, so you can’t compare that way. Also, trains are way better than this. French trains drive you around on nuclear energy.

usrusr 5y ago
But that increased impact is a short term difference, right? The changes to air composition we cause by digging up in a few decades what had been sequestered off in millions of years are forever changes.
- maigret 5y ago
  Good questions, I don’t know enough details. CO2 stays in the air for a long time, but not forever either. For sure though, it’s absorbed way too slowly than what we’re outputting now.

jstsch 5y ago

That figure excludes take off and landing, which adds quite a bit on short haul flights.

selectodude 5y ago
No it doesn’t. Landing is far more efficient.
LegitShady 5y ago
why does landing take more fuel?
- EdwardDiego 5y ago
  Planes are most efficient at high altitude. Landing necessarily involves slowly descending into thicker atmosphere - well, a good landing, anyway.
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    At a slowing speed and typically at near-idle thrust. The aircraft exchanges gravitational potential energy for velocity through most of the descent. The only high-trust portions are when reverse thrusters are engaged, typically for a few seconds following landing, or if TOGO power is invoked for an aborted approach.
    - EdwardDiego 5y ago
      You've never been on a plane that had to enter a holding pattern?
      - dredmorbius 5y ago
        Which is effectively level flight / continued cruise, a low-power flight segment, not a high-powered one. That last would only apply if the aircraft had aborted an approach, which typically gives priority. Again: the original claim was that both take-off and landing were high-fuel-consumption flight segments. That's untrue. Under normal conditions only take-off is, and even most deviations from a nominal approach have a fairly minor impact. You're going to extreme lengths to avoid admitting this, and are making the issue personal to boot. Any particular reason for that? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29186605 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29186605

ajuc 5y ago

> A mid-sized petrol-powered car consumes three times as much. Average ICE bus consumes order of magnitude less per seat than planes. The only reason planes win vs cars is that cars aren't public transport and planes are. So you divide by many more seats.

dzhiurgis 5y ago
Try taking 1000km trip on a diesel bus once and tell me if that metric matters to anyone.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  You know, I've actually done a few multi day trips by bus, around Croatia and its many places to visit (all the way from Plitvička Jezera to Baska, Krk and Vrbnik, then over to Venice), as well as Egypt (Hurghada to Luxor and later to Cairo). Oh and also a bit around Norway (though i only have Flåm tagged on my map, don't remember the route). I would say that longer trips by bus are not as unpleasant as you might suggest - as long as you don't attempt to do them in one go, but rather make stops along the way and get some fresh air, walk around and stretch, get something to eat, or maybe do some shopping if needed. There's probably something to be said about travelling more slowly and enjoying the locales along the way and maybe using motels for the longer trips, as opposed to viewing travel as purely getting from point A to point B as fast as possible. Of course, to be honest, that might not always be possible either in our fast paced culture. Now, there can be certain drawbacks in practice: - certain places will only have old buses, so no Wi-Fi - for some reason many buses don't have USB outlets for charging - many buses also disallow you to recline your seat, what's up with that? - some of the older buses also have pretty poor AC, then again, the weather in Egypt was pretty hot to begin with - for some reason the head rests are always smaller when compared to those in planes, making sleeping less comfortable - some of the drivers really love to drive in ways that appear unsafe to the passenger (perhaps due to the long wheelbase and suspension) - this feels especially uncomfortable mountainous roads In short, try to take the newer buses whenever that's possible but otherwise just hope that the old ones will get replaced eventually. Though personally I'd still say that trains feel like the safest mode of travel, followed by buses and then planes feeling the least safe of all, regardless of what engineering excellence goes into making them. That's enough to sway my personal choice. And if that's somehow better for the environment, then why not? Plus, the food in roadside eateries seems better than airplane food.

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pacificmint 5y ago

> fuel consumption per seat at 2.19 L/100 km. A mid-sized petrol-powered car consumes three times as much. It seems like you are comparing fuel per seat for planes with fuel per vehicle for cars. At five seats, that would be equivalent to 11 l/100km, which almost all modern cars should beat. Even if you only count four seats for the car, it would still be 8.8 l/100km, which many cars can beat.

HWR_14 5y ago
I would expect planes to be usually almost full. I would expect passenger cars to average 2 people per car.
- Tepix 5y ago
  If you want to compare a large passenger plane to a land based vehicle you should pick a train. Both the train and the plane can only go certain routes and are mass transit vehicles. The emission of gases in the upper atmosphere by airplanes also worsens their climate heating effect by 300% (source: https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/umwelttipps-fuer-den-alltag/mobilitaet/flugreisen#hintergrund https://www.umweltbundesamt.de/umwelttipps-fuer-den-alltag/m...)
  - dredmorbius 5y ago
    I'd agree on the basis of efficiency arguments. If you want to discuss actual practice, though, 75% of European international ground travel is by private car, not train. That said, we can simply state the per-passenger-distance efficiency of different transport modes and leave the "you shoulds" to others.
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    I agree, we should switch to trains where feasible. I'd like to see more long-haul trains set up with affordable sleeper cars. But most land transportation over long distance is still by car.
lmm 5y ago
But what's the average occupation rate of the plane and the car?

jokoon 5y ago

using air travel is like driving a small individual car to reach the same destination. the car will travel slower, but the carbon stays the same. not really efficient.