How much fuel does an international airplane use for a trip?

A Boeing 747 uses approximately one galloon of fuel per second -- over the course of a ten hour flight, it might burn 36,00 galloons of fuel. How does this compare to a car? Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more about airplane mileage.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to brain Stuff from house stuff works dot com
where smart happens. Hi. I'm Marshall Brain with today's question,
how much fuel does an international airplane use for a trip?
A plane like a Boeing seven forty seven uses approximately
one gallon of fuel every second. Over the course of
a ten hour flight, it might burn thirty six thousand

(00:23):
gallons of fuel. That sounds like a lot. According to
Boeing's website, the seven forty seven burns approximately five gallons
of fuel per mile. This sounds like tremendously poor miles
per gallon, but consider that a seven forty seven can
carry as many as five hundred sixty eight people let's
call it five hundred people to use around number. A

(00:45):
seven forty seven is transporting five hundred people one mile
using five gallons of fuel. That means the plane is
burning about point oh one gallons per person per mile.
In other words, the plane is getting a hundred miles
per gallon per person. The typical car gets about twenty
five miles per gallon, So the seven forty seven is

(01:07):
actually much better than a car carrying one person, and
compares favorably even if there are four people in the car.
Not bad when you consider that the seven forty seven
is flying at about five fifty miles per hour. Do
you have any ideas or suggestions for this podcast? If so,
please send me an email at podcast at how stuff

(01:27):
works dot com. For more on this and thousands of
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