Recent trends in payload fuel energy efficiency: An analysis of U.S. air carriers from 2003 to 2017

A simple payload fuel energy efficiency (PFEE) metric is used here to establish the year-on-year fuel efficiency performance of both scheduled and non-scheduled U.S. air carriers operating in the domestic and international markets over a 15-year period from 2003-2017. The operational data used in this study is sourced from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Schedules T-2 and P-12(a), which allows revenue payload distances to be determined and related to the associated fuel quantities consumed. The resulting time-series show the trends in PFEE at a fleet level, and illustrate how the year-on-year efficiency improvements in the domestic market (2.50% p/a) have outstripped those in the international market (1.38% p/a) between 2003 and 2017.