Tuesday, August 31, 2004
The other day I spent a few hours watching satellite TV in a nice leather chair while someone came around periodically to give me free non-alcoholic beverages and potato chips. The whole thing cost me $67 including tax -- not an egregious bill for New York City standards (although I did have to go to Queens).
What makes this experience noteworthy? The fact that at the end, I was no longer in Queens, but in South Florida. Yes I was on Jet Blue. How is it possible for them to take me to Florida for $67, when the cab ride to JFK airport was nearly $60? They're not using surplus Russian cargo planes powered with discarded restaurant cooking oil. As far as I could tell, the plane was not piloted remotely from some control room in Banglore (although I think my taxi was).
NO REALLY!
Jet Blue flies Airbus 320 aircraft configured with 156 seats. Assuming the plane was 75% full (the two seats next to me were empty) and each passenger paid $70, they made about $8,190 on that flight (reasonable I think, since a lot of my $67 ticket was taxes).
These planes have a fuel capacity of 23,860 liters, or about 6,300 gallons of jet fuel. At last week's spot price of $1.30 per gallon of fuel, the cost to fill the tank on that puppy would be about $8,190.
The revenue on that flight was about enough to fill the tank up. I didn't even pick those numbers so that they would add up to the same amount, they just did. Considering the airline claims to be making money, I guess we can assume that my assumptions are completely wrong, or my math. Either way, I'm not feeling too well about this.
What makes this experience noteworthy? The fact that at the end, I was no longer in Queens, but in South Florida. Yes I was on Jet Blue. How is it possible for them to take me to Florida for $67, when the cab ride to JFK airport was nearly $60? They're not using surplus Russian cargo planes powered with discarded restaurant cooking oil. As far as I could tell, the plane was not piloted remotely from some control room in Banglore (although I think my taxi was).
NO REALLY!
Jet Blue flies Airbus 320 aircraft configured with 156 seats. Assuming the plane was 75% full (the two seats next to me were empty) and each passenger paid $70, they made about $8,190 on that flight (reasonable I think, since a lot of my $67 ticket was taxes).
These planes have a fuel capacity of 23,860 liters, or about 6,300 gallons of jet fuel. At last week's spot price of $1.30 per gallon of fuel, the cost to fill the tank on that puppy would be about $8,190.
The revenue on that flight was about enough to fill the tank up. I didn't even pick those numbers so that they would add up to the same amount, they just did. Considering the airline claims to be making money, I guess we can assume that my assumptions are completely wrong, or my math. Either way, I'm not feeling too well about this.
