The largest cost on the balance sheet for any airline is fuel. Doesn’t matter where the airline is based and doesn’t matter what kind of airline it is. Fuel is the single largest cost that airlines have and can’t get rid of. What they can do though is use new technological advancements to their advantage to safe as much fuel as possible. By saving fuel you, obviously, buy less and in turn spend less. Therefore, airlines are on the constant lookout for innovative technologies that can help achieve marginal gains regarding fuel consumption. That is also what Austrian Airlines is hoping to achieve with four of its wide body planes.
What Is AeroSHARK and How Does It Work?
So, let’s start off by talking about AeroSHARK itself. What is it and how does it work? Simply put it is an additional layer placed on the outer fuselage that helps reduce friction and therefore drag between the aircraft’s skin and the air. The layer is made of low friction material that when applied to the aircraft’s fuselage makes a very even a smooth surface that allows the air to move past the plane with less resistance. Less air friction induced drag translates to fuel saving for the airlines, which most importantly means less money spent on fuel, hence a lower cost per unit and higher margins.
This new innovative technology has been designed and created through a Lufthansa Technik and BASF. Now the German group is in the process of applying it to an ever-growing number of its carriers’ planes.
Fuel savings brought by applying AeroShark to planes are in the order of 1%. That might not sound as a lot, but considering the huge volumes of fuel burnt every day it sums up to significant savings in the longer run.
Austrian Airlines Also Looking to Save Fuel with AeroShark
As other carriers in the Lufthansa Group Austrian Airlines too will benefit from this innovative technology. Four of its six Boeing 777-200s are getting fitted with AeroSHARK so-called riblets. That means that these planes, commonly used on the airline’s longest routes will have a reduced fuel burn and environmental footprint.
Austrian Airlines’ Boeing 777-200s serve far-flung destinations such as:
- Tokyo
- Shanghai
- Bangkok
- New York
- Los Angeles
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