4 ms·

"767-300ER consumes 1,600 gallons of fuel for each hour in flight" according to one link, to give you some back-of-envelope math. Looks like in the US, Jet A c

"767-300ER consumes 1,600 gallons of fuel for each hour in flight" according to one link, to give you some back-of-envelope math. Looks like in the US, Jet A costs roughly $4/gal (I'm sure airlines pay less, due to volume and such) but that means the plane is burning $6500/hr in fuel. Very rough guesses on labor: figure the two pilots are making $100k/year, that's $100-200/hour just for them. Cabin crew I'd guess are 50k/year, google says 7 of them, so that's $350-700/hour there (figures are doubled because I seem to recall the true cost of an employee is usually twice their salary?) So very very roughly, fuel costs are 10x labor costs

lotsofpulp 4y ago
Commercial pilots flying international routes should be making way more than $100k/year.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
msbarnett 4y ago
> Very rough guesses on labor: figure the two pilots are making $100k/year Fuel costs still outweigh labour, but a captain on a 767 makes more than double that (~$220,000-$250,000 USD or thereabouts). A first officer would be looking at $120,000ish, I think?
- KennyBlanken 4y ago
  I used the average airline pilot salary according to glassdoor. I doubled all the labor costs to account for non-wage expenses. I'm sorry that wasn't good enough for you in a comment where I repeatedly qualified things as "back of the envelope" and "very rough" and so on, and made it clear I picked one particular model out of the blue. ...and the difference between fuel and labor was an order of magnitude, which more than answered the parent commenter. Also, pilot seniority / pay varies with the route and schedule, not airplane model.
  - msbarnett 4y ago
    > I'm sorry that wasn't good enough for you in a comment where I repeatedly qualified things as "back of the envelope" and "very rough" and so on, and made it clear I picked one particular model out of the blue. Dude, I was just adding information for the unaware reading this thread, you can unnail yourself from that cross. It wasn’t an attack. > Also, pilot seniority / pay varies with the route and schedule, not airplane model. It varies by seniority and model they’re checked out on. Model they are qualified on determines the routes they can bid on - because you recertify every 6 months in simulator on your model, it’s not really possible to maintain a bunch of different active certifications and fly routes with different models routinely, so your model determines your pay. Source: close family member has been a commercial airline pilot for decades and has been actively involved in union negotiations.
    - prawn 4y ago
      Is this a recent development where people take a reply to by-default be an argument rather than sometimes just adding to discussion? I've seen it a few times on HN in the last year.
      - iso1631 4y ago
        No, it's been that way since Eternal September
- cft 4y ago
  Plus the cost of the airplane (8x for A350?) divided by its lifetime in hours

lotsofpulp 4y ago

Commercial pilots flying international routes should be making way more than $100k/year.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

msbarnett 4y ago

> Very rough guesses on labor: figure the two pilots are making $100k/year Fuel costs still outweigh labour, but a captain on a 767 makes more than double that (~$220,000-$250,000 USD or thereabouts). A first officer would be looking at $120,000ish, I think?

KennyBlanken 4y ago
I used the average airline pilot salary according to glassdoor. I doubled all the labor costs to account for non-wage expenses. I'm sorry that wasn't good enough for you in a comment where I repeatedly qualified things as "back of the envelope" and "very rough" and so on, and made it clear I picked one particular model out of the blue. ...and the difference between fuel and labor was an order of magnitude, which more than answered the parent commenter. Also, pilot seniority / pay varies with the route and schedule, not airplane model.
- msbarnett 4y ago
  > I'm sorry that wasn't good enough for you in a comment where I repeatedly qualified things as "back of the envelope" and "very rough" and so on, and made it clear I picked one particular model out of the blue. Dude, I was just adding information for the unaware reading this thread, you can unnail yourself from that cross. It wasn’t an attack. > Also, pilot seniority / pay varies with the route and schedule, not airplane model. It varies by seniority and model they’re checked out on. Model they are qualified on determines the routes they can bid on - because you recertify every 6 months in simulator on your model, it’s not really possible to maintain a bunch of different active certifications and fly routes with different models routinely, so your model determines your pay. Source: close family member has been a commercial airline pilot for decades and has been actively involved in union negotiations.
  - prawn 4y ago
    Is this a recent development where people take a reply to by-default be an argument rather than sometimes just adding to discussion? I've seen it a few times on HN in the last year.
    - iso1631 4y ago
      No, it's been that way since Eternal September
cft 4y ago
Plus the cost of the airplane (8x for A350?) divided by its lifetime in hours