Posted on 12 Comments on Airbus A380: Some Numbers

Airbus A380: Some Numbers

Everybody’s talking about the Airbus A380 that landed at Montreal’s Pierre Elliot Trudeau airport yesterday. I’m a big fan of airplanes and flying, so I wish I could have been there to witness it. I’m an uneasy fan, however, as I realize that air travel is one of the biggest contributors to pollution, oil consumption, and greenhouse gases.

A380 lands in Montreal

Photo by Abdou.W (via Flickr)

The A380 is supposed to be more fuel efficient than other jumbo jets, which is encouraging. The plane is also supposed to be significantly quieter than other large passenger planes, an improvement which should not be overlooked. But what do all those numbers really mean? I decided to do some calculations in order to find out.

Fuel Consumption

The A380 supposedly uses “less than three litres of fuel, per passenger, per 100 kilometers.” Apparently that’s pretty efficient for a big jumbo jet, at least on a per-person basis. Airbus’s Web site claims it is 17% more efficient than “today’s largest aircraft.” (Elsewhere on the site it says the plane “burns 12 per cent less fuel per seat” than “its competitor.”)

Those “per person” numbers look impressive, but what happens when you start factoring in many persons and long distances? For example, Montreal to Paris is something like 5500 kilometres. The standard configuration for the plane is for 525 passengers in three classes. (It can carry up to 853 people, but that assumes an “all economy” configuration – which is unlikely to occur. )

Since the 525 seat configuration is mentioned on the Airbus Web site “green” pages, we’ll use that as our basis. In that case, 525 people times 5500 kilometres equals 2,887,500 “person-kilometers” for the trip. Divide that by 100 and you get 28,875 “100-kilometer units,” multiplied by 2.9 liters per unit (“less than three litres”), and you get a total of 83,737 litres of fuel burned for one trip across the pond.

CO2 Emissions

Airbus’s Web site says the A380 emits 75 grams of CO2 per passenger, per kilometer. So let’s crunch some numbers again, using the same Montreal-Paris flight we talked about above.

525 passengers times 5500 kilometres times 75 grams = 216,562,500 grams, or 216,562 kilograms, or almost 217 metric tonnes of CO2 for that one flight to Paris.

Let’s put that in perspective. According to the calculator at the U.K.’s Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders Limited’s Web site, my Honda Fit spits out 134 grams of CO2 per kilometer, which is almost double that of the (per passenger) output of the A380. So having 525 people fly to Paris on an Airbus A380 is like having 294 people drive there in Honda Fits (assuming you could drive across the ocean).

Keep in mind, however, that this Guardian Travelog story calls some of those numbers into dispute. For example, it claims the efficiency numbers are based on 550 passengers with no baggage or cargo.

Conclusions?

I have to admit, I thought air travel burned more fuel and emitted more pollution than what these numbers indicate. I feel less guilty about my once or twice a year plane rides now. But all you have to do is watch the dozens of planes that land at Montreal’s airport every hour, or the roughly 1500 landings and takeoffs per day at Charles de Gaulle International Airport to realize how many planes are out there spewing their 75, or 90, or 150 grams of CO2 per passenger per kilometer. Even if flying is more fuel and emissions efficient than driving, there is still a “death by a thousand cuts” issue based on the sheer volume of daily air traffic.

12 thoughts on “Airbus A380: Some Numbers”

  1. Yes but keep in mind that when the skies went planeless the following days after 9/11 the average temperature dropped 3 degrees instantly over the ares covered by the blackout. Despite the numbers, flying has a huge impact on pollution and global warming.

  3. And so I guess the math is way off when Prince Alwaleed bin Talal hops aboard his own private A380 and tools around wherever it is that a Saudi Prince is headed for when they take to the skies in their $325 million toys?

  5. Oh, well’s that’s a whole diffeent thing. With those tyes of numbers they’ll likely organize some sort of a commuter service – drop the harems off at the pool, shuttle the polo ponies off for group rate re-shoeing, go splits on oil barrel sized containers of halva and the like at the fly-thru checkout and other smaller footprint type efforts. ;-)

  6. Harry Says:
    Oh, well’s that’s a whole diffeent thing. With those tyes of numbers they’ll likely organize some sort of a commuter service – drop the harems off at the pool, shuttle the polo ponies off for group rate re-shoeing, go splits on oil barrel sized containers of halva and the like at the fly-thru checkout and other smaller footprint type efforts. ;-)
    ====

    That’s borderline racist, but funny. Bonus points for not mentioning camels, or sand dunes, or open-toe sandals. :-D

  7. Hmm . . . seems to me that describing obscenely rich people who inherited it through none other than luck in perjorative terms isn’t necessarily bad . . . perhaps one should consult the millions of South Asians or Filipinos who toil in harsh conditions to serve their Saudi masters for a more definitive opinion :)

    But I’m anxiously awaiting the arrival of the Dreamliner, if the truth be told

  8. I need a vacation. Here I am bouncing around on the ropes of inappropriateness and all I can seem to do is pick up on specific words being thrown into the ring. I see camel(s) – toe – obscene(ly) – people… Sorry to have dragged this off topic Blork. Throwing in the towel.

  9. Harry, no, I don’t think you did drag it off topic. Blork’s point was not exactly the magnificence of the A380 but a lot to do with how environmentally-friendly it is–or is not. And the thought of someone who has enough money to burn that he–an individual, not a country or airline–can pick one up for his bimonthly vacation to Dubai is kind of obscene.

    So . . . not off topic. But I see how you can envision throwing it in. Some people these days just have a different perspective of reality . . .

  10. Hey, relax. ITS is from Albania; when an Albanian calls your comment “borderline racist” he’s just making conversation.

    HA HA HA HA!!! (Diving for cover…)

  12. RE Dave ID’s comment:
    The temperature did not drop during the ban on air travel after 9/11. The range in daily temperature variations increased. Contrails produced by high flying jets actually act to cool the Earth’s surface, not heat it up, as these artificial clouds block sunlight from going beyond the lower atmosphere. With the jets grounded, this buffer was lost and things got a little warmer and a little more variable down on the ground.
    http://www.sciencenews.org/articles/20020511/fob1.asp
    http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/08/07/contrails.climate/

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