Flying is expensive. Why is this? Well most would say it’s because of the
cost of fuel, but that’s not entirely true. The Airbus a320neo can carry 6,400 gallons
of fuel. That’s the equivalent of 376 fully tanked
Toyota Camry’s. For every mile that the a320 flies, it burns
1.5 gallons of jet fuel. That works out to a paltry .67 miles per gallon. An a320 could barely fly from the Empire State
Building to Grand Central Terminal on that gallon of fuel. To fly the 213 miles from New York to DC,
that a320 needs 317 gallons of fuel. With that amount, our Toyota Camry could drive
from New York to LA 49 times. But, we do have to consider that a Camry only
seats five. An a320 seats 154. So, assuming that our plane is fully loaded,
it now has a per person fuel efficiency of 104.7 miles per gallon. That’s amazing! According to the Bureau of Transport Statistics,
airlines pay on average only $1.24 per gallon of fuel. So, flying from New York to DC, you personally
only use $2.50 worth of fuel, so why do these tickets cost upwards of $80! Well, there’s so much more that goes into
your ticket price than fuel. Before we start, I’ll quickly mention that
these are all rough estimates. Many of these prices will vary widely through
time and there are certainly ways that airlines reduce these costs, but this will give you
a general idea of what actually makes flying so expensive. The first thing we can add to our ticket price
is crew costs. A pilot makes on average around $79,000 a
year which works out to about $44 per flight hour. We have two pilots so for our hour long flight
from New York to DC so that’s $88 to the pilots. A fully loaded a320 requires four flight attendants
who are each paid around $38 per flight hour for a total of $152 bringing our crew costs
up to $240. So, with our 154 seats that works out to just
about $1.5 per person in crew costs. Alright, now we’re at $4 dollars. Next, we gotta pay the airports. New York’s John F Kennedy Airport charges
$6.33 per thousand pounds of airplane taking off, and our a320 weighs 172,000 pounds. That means we have to give $1089 dollars to
JFK or $7 per person. Dulles airport doesn’t publish their landing
fees, but we’ll assume it’s about the same as JFK’s landing fees at $1005 for
our now 170,000 pound airplane. These fees generally include the cost of using
gates, porters, and other airport resources, and divide down to $13.5 per person. Our total is now at $17.5. Now we get to the fun part—taxes. There’s a litany of different taxes and
they all vary by country, so for the sake of simplicity we’ll just cover the ones
for the US. The simplest tax is the Domestic Passenger
Ticket Tax at 7.5% of the ticket price. That money goes to the FAA. If you land or take off a rural airport, which
is defined as, “an airport with less than 100K enplanements during 2nd preceding calendar
year, and either 1) is not located within 75 miles of another airport with 100K+ enplanements
per year, 2) is receiving essential air service subsides, or 3) is not connected by paved
roads to another airport,” they also tack on another 7.5%. That, of course, doesn’t apply to either
of our airports. The FAA also charges $4 flat for any flight
within the US, unless you go to Hawaii or Alaska. Then they charge $8.70. The TSA then adds a $5.60 tax called the 9/11
security fee that goes to fund the heightened security since 9/11. Those are only just for domestic flights. If we were flying from New York to Paris,
we would also have to add on $17.70 for the International Transportation Tax, $5.50 for
the US customs user fee, $5.00 for the U.S. Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
Fee, $7.00 for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Fee, and $14 for the French Civil Aviation
Tax. So with all the taxes and fees that apply
for this short flight, we’re now at $33 total. Now, lets remember that airplanes are expensive. Our a320 costs 107 million dollars. The service life for airplanes is not actually
determined by flying time, it’s determined by something called flight cycles, which is
basically a fancy word for one flight. It doesn’t really matter how long an airplane
flies in its service life, what matters is how many times it’s pressurized. This is because every time it’s pressurized,
micro cracks develop around the rivets that connect the the metal plates that make up
a fuselage. No matter if a plane goes on a 30 minute flight
or a 9 hour flight, the wear and tear to the plane will be the same. This is why large long-haul airplanes are
often older. They might only go through one flight cycle
per day while small regional jets could go through eight or ten. So, back to our a320. Our plane is actually a pretty durable aircraft. It can fly up to 60,000 cycles. So if we divide the total price of our plane
by the maximum number of flight cycles, we get that $1783 per flight must be devoted
towards paying off the initial price of the airplane. Per person, that works out to $11.5 dollars. We’re now at $44.5 dollars. To keep this plane safe, airlines have to
also perform regular maintenance. For our hour long flight, an airline has to
do maintenance that will cost $646 in labor, $276 in parts, $603 in inspections and component
overhauls, and another $596 in engine restoration. That’s $2121 total or $14 per person. We’re up to $58.5 dollars. We also have to consider the non-flying part
of flying. Overseeing any flight is an airline which
is a business that has costs in and of itself. They need to pay administrators, executives,
software engineers, marketers, consultants, customer service personal, public relations
agents, janitors, along with rent, benefits, travel costs, utilities, and more. It’s hard to put an exact number on how
much per person this works out to, but we’ll make a conservative estimate of $10. We’re up to $68.5. Alright, insurance. An airline will pay about $106,500 per year
for insurance for an a320 and assuming our plane spends eight hours per day in the air,
$36 of this insurance is for this hour long flight, or about 25 cents per person. So, our very rough grand total is $68.75. We’ll round this up to $70 since there are
various small things I didn’t cover such as hotel costs for crew members, plane storage,
apu rental, liability insurance, etc. That means that $10 of our plane ticket is
profit, but keep in mind that all my estimates were on the conservative end and it’s all
assuming a fully loaded airplane. In the end, not a ton of the money actually
goes to the airline. Back to my first line: “flying is expensive.” Well, it really isn’t and it’s getting
cheaper. To fly in the magic metal bird across the
country from New York to L.A. in six hours costs around $340 roundtrip. To drive in our very fuel efficient Toyota
Camry across the country in forty hours costs $340 just in fuel then an additional $300
in estimated maintenance and depreciation costs. In the past 30 years, the average inflation
adjusted airfare has dropped by 50% and it’s still dropping. In 1974, it was actually illegal for airlines
to offer a flight between New York and LA for less than $1442 inflation adjusted dollars
and now you can sometimes find these flights for less than $200 round trip. One of the reasons for this drop in prices
is the rise of efficient airplanes. Certain innovations such as composite construction,
better aerodynamics, more efficient engines, and, perhaps most notably, winglets have driven
down the cost of flying. Here’s the one and only “Real Engineering”
to explain winglets. As you said, the airline industry is constantly
finding ways to drive down their fuel consumption. In the early 70's, fuel prices rocketed, and
engineers were forced to find ways to make their planes more efficient. One way they found was with winglets, which
are those little curly bits at the end of the wing. Let's have a quick look at how they work. Winglets were introduced to decrease induced
drag, which occurs when high-pressure air below the wing begins to bleed over the edge
into the low-pressure air above. This flow creates vortices off the tips of
the wings that creates drag and reduces lift which reduces the fuel economy of the plane. Winglets act to reduce these vortices by reducing
the airflow over the edge of the wing. For a full explanation and a look at the history
behind winglets, head over to my channel and watch my new video which features a special
guest appearance from Wendover Productions. Thank’s Real Engineering! Be sure to go check out and subscribe to Real
Engineering’s channel. If you like this channel, I guarantee you
will enjoy his. I’ll leave you with the real reason specific
airfares are expensive, but also a reason why they’re getting cheaper—competition,
or lack there of. The airline industry is one with very little
competition. Airfares from New York to LA are cheap because
there’s a lot of demand and there’s a relatively high amount of competition. Five different airlines fly direct from New
York to LA, two of which are budget airlines. People don’t care that much which airline
they fly, they care about the price, so airlines will try to match the price of the budget
airlines. Compare this to a route like Denver to Gunnison
Country airport. Largely because only United makes this flight,
you will often pay more than $500 for this 130 mile flight. So, that’s why your plane tickets cost so
much. Next time you book your travel, you’ll know
why you’re paying so much and also how little of that actually goes to airlines. Thank you for watching. If you enjoyed this video, make sure to click
subscribe. You can also click here to be taken to RealEngineering’s
channel. If you enjoyed this video, please share it
on Twitter, Reddit, Facebook, Stumbleupon, Digg—whatever website you like. You can check out last week’s video on an
Illegal number here. Also, please follow me on Twitter @WendoverPro. Lastly, I’d like to thank you for all your
support and welcome all the new subscribers from the past few weeks. Next week I’ll be back to my normal series—That
Wikipedia List.
"Why do some of these tickets cost upwards of $80"
I fucking lost it at that line. In Canada flying 2 provinces over cost me $600 round trip.
$44 per fligh hour for the pilot and 38$ per flight hour for the flight attendants? Seriously? I thought there's a much bigger difference between those two jobs -_-
I was always wondering why flying is so cheap actually. I can get to basically any European country with Ryanair in range of 50-100 euros (even cheaper than 50 if you order months prior)
Or, as Richard Branson put it: "If you want to be a Millionaire, start with a billion dollars and launch a new airline."
Fixed name
Well this is my video. I guess there are two posts that are picking up traction so I'll comment this in both. Thanks for sharing and upvoting! You have no idea how for it feels to make videos that people like. Anyways, my last video went on the front page and I asked people in the comments to follow me on Twitter (@wendoverpro) and I jumped from 50 to 750 followers in a week, so I'll ask again. Also, obviously, please subscribe on YouTube :) If you have any questions or comments, let me know and I'd be happy to answer them. Also but shout out to Real Engineering (www.youtube.com/realengineering) for helping me make this video. He's a great YouTube that deserves more
Great video. I'm a commercial pilot and love hearing things like this. People just don't understand that you don't only pay for fuel in aircraft.
Flying isn't expensive.
It's almost always cheaper than driving or taking a train.
Taking a bus is usually cheaper, but then you're in a bus for multiple days.
he sounds like a male Tina from bobs burgers
Great video!
It's a shame that more people don't understand overhead costs, especially when flights are rarely 100.00% full