The Oil Drum | What If Gas Cost $100 a Gallon?

309 comments on What If Gas Cost $100 a Gallon?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

| Show without comments | PDF version

john15 on May 26, 2008 - 2:28pm

Present prices for fares are relatively low because many bought oil on the futures market, but this position is unwinding.
They are hoping that oil prices drop, but if they don't then they will be caught by the dual price structure of air fares, with the bulk of travel at cheap tourist rates.

my understanding was that the airlines were caught unhedged, except for Southwest, this because they thought oil prices would fall.

airlines are raising prices right now and airlines are going out of business so the industry should be a bit healthier for a little while because they have less competition.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

DaveMart on May 26, 2008 - 2:32pm

If you check out the financial papers that is not what the industry is saying.
Even the strongest are in trouble, and that is at current oil prices.
The business model just does not work at anything like current prices, let alone any increase.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Dragonfly41 on May 26, 2008 - 5:44pm

My brother-in-law says the same thing. He works for American. They are not expecting fuel prices to drop and people will have to adjust to ever-increasing airline fares. And, he said just what you said...the old business model for the airline industry will have to change. He believes that hybrid fuel planes are the answer...biofuels, fuel cells, etc. He is not receptive to conservation.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

DaveMart on May 26, 2008 - 5:53pm

Some around here regard me as a cornucopian, but powering aircraft is a really very difficult problem indeed with oil shortages.
This is the exception which proves the rule, and if you haven't got fossil fuels then producing hydrogen or artificial liquid fuels would seem to be the only way.
Doing that will be very expensive and take a lot of time, and it should not be held in any reasonable contemplation that for many years the mass travel industry will cease as we know it today.
Very expensive flights across the Atlantic and Pacific with some turbo-props or propfans for shorter journeys but mainly trains and boats is the size of it.
Good-bye Hawaii.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

greenish on May 27, 2008 - 12:27am

Good-bye Hawaii.

Aloha also means goodbye.

Gotta go start carving a giant stone head now...

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

abelardlindsay on May 27, 2008 - 12:56am

Coal-To-Liquids is how we'll make Jet fuel in the future...
The air force is already pumping money into it and no they don't care about the extra greenhouse gas emissions.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121134017363909773.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Termoil on May 27, 2008 - 3:25am

I'm sure they do care - they just have higher and more urgent priorities. Whether they will make enough CTL Jet Fuel to sustain cheap consumer flights to Disney World and Hawaii remains to be seen.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Kiashu on May 27, 2008 - 4:09am

Good to know they'll be able to keep their $240 million fighter-bombers going in a time of economic depression, maybe they will save Washington the embarassment of the world doing something productive and blow up a few wind turbines :)

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

paulk_04 on May 27, 2008 - 1:43am

"Very expensive flights across the Atlantic and Pacific with some turbo-props or propfans for shorter journeys but mainly trains and boats is the size of it."

Zepplins anyone?

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

DaveMart on May 27, 2008 - 6:14am

Funny you should say so - I posted on a demonstrator air-ship the other day!
I think technological solutions are possible - but the present industry will disappear/remodel long before they come along.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

NeverLNG on May 27, 2008 - 2:30pm

We shared comments on that airship yesterday. Intriguing idea. What do you suppose a transatlantic fare would have to cost? Seems like it might be pretty high-- that thing will take a while to cross the ocean, and people will need to sleep, so they won't be able to carry many passengers. It will be sort of like an arial Amtrak

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

vtpeaknik on May 27, 2008 - 2:59pm

What makes y'all think that airships are more energy efficient? They are bulky, thus have major drag, needing a lot of energy to move through the air. And that's at slow speeds, meaning that any headwind is a major additional loss of efficiency.

The relevant efficiency is per mile, not per minute. It is a common misconception that the engines of an airplane keep it in the air, thus the bouyancy of a ligher-than-air airship seems attractive. But in truth the wings keep an airplane aloft, while the engines are there to overcome drag.

Moreover, the helium to fill airships is depleting (and way too precious to waste on such - it is not "used up" on purpose but it does always leak). Hydrogen is renewable (in principle), but flammable...

The most efficient way to fly long distances is with long wings at relatively slow speeds. Sailplanes fly for hours with no engine at all, extracting roughly 5 horsepower (for a single-place aircraft) from rising air movements. I.e., with a 5HP engine such a sailplane could travel in a straight line at about 70 mph in still air.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

fordprefect on May 27, 2008 - 3:10pm

I would think a decent application for airships would be similar to sailing ships, but different. What happens if you don't try to go where you WANT to go, but instead just drop the airship into the jetstream and use power only for maneuvering? I know it's a one way street, but it's one way at 90+ kph energy free. On such a large structure, hot air should work pretty efficiently.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

DaveMart on May 28, 2008 - 6:40am

That's a very good point.
To the extent that they are adopted I would see them following the trade winds, rather than powering through.
The large surface area also means that part of the power can be generated by PV.
I don't see them as anything remotely approaching the current airliner fleet though - perhaps some might be used as heavy lift vehicles instead of road transport.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

WNC Observer on May 26, 2008 - 8:26pm

The business model will have to change. They will need to begin with the assumption that flying will be very expensive, and thus only the upper crust of business and leisure travelers will be able to afford it. Those who can afford it will only fly when there is a substantial time savings to be achieved over ground transport, because for them, time is money.

This means that the small planes flying feeder routes will be gone. This also means that the megaplanes designed to fly the masses inexpensively will be gone. Yes, they are efficient on a per-passenger basis, but they also need to accumulate a lot of passengers in order to fly a full plane. The upper crust passengers would rather not have to wait hours for one megaplane and have to rub shoulders with we commoners, they would rather have the option of more frequent schedules on smaller aircraft.

Scheduling might change completely. regularly scheduled routes might become a thing of the past. Instead, airlines might be run entirely on a charter basis, accumulating passengers and flying only when they actually have a full aircraft.

I don't know if any of the existing airlines can transition to this new model. They might all need to go bankrupt, and then one or more new model successor airlines might need to pick up the pieces at bargain prices in order to make it work.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

DRAGONDONK on May 26, 2008 - 9:30pm

The capital cost of owning or leasing say even one new A380 will have an effect of killing off what you have described as the charter model. An airline would find it very hard to have an A380 or even a 747 sitting on the ground waiting for enough passengers to accumulate into a full flight. The interest payment on a $600M aircraft is going to be a lot of money (and no I don't thave the time to dig into the operational costs of airlines) so they need to keep them full and flying to make it viable just to own them.

Rationalisation of airlines will have to occur to concentrate the ever dwindling market onto fewer scheduled flights.

It would not surprise me to see the re-introduction of trans ocean passenger shipping again for inter continental travel, but the number of trips that individuals make via this means may be limited to no more than one in a lifetime.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

greenish on May 27, 2008 - 12:31am

Then again, the jets will all be sitting on the ground anyhow. It may not be profitable for the planes' owners, but there will be charters flying for awhile since it'll be less unprofitable. Skimping on maintenance will case more crashes, but that's part of the adventure.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

SlicerDicer on May 27, 2008 - 1:07am

They would make decent recycled homes I bet. Given the high quality aluminum structure and their capability of withstanding subzero temperatures.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

noutram on May 27, 2008 - 7:32am

Has anyone considered the impact of these planes refuelling in the fewer and fewer NET exporting countries?

For example I would expect that London>KSA>Bangkok might remain feasable if the plane refuelled using aviation fuel refined in KSA from local oil...

In addition Ammonia powered airplanes might be possible (Ammonia as an easier to manage Hydrogen carrier) -Ammonia is an widespread Industrial commodity.

Regards, Nick.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

WNC Observer on May 27, 2008 - 9:54am

Your comments illustrate exactly why I think the huge passenger jets will be as extinct as dinosaurs. Smaller, older jets can be gotten very inexpensively, and it doesn't take so many people to fill them up, especially if you expand the first class section. It won't be a mass transportation market any more, it will be a luxury market, and that is a totally different ball game.

I doubt that we'll see a return to the grand old passenger ships, much as I'd like to see it. Given polulation pressures and the likely imposition of severe immigration controls everywhere, you won't have a bunch of poor people to fill up the lower decks. The well-to-do won't have the time for a leisurely ocean crossing; they would rather pay the premium necessary to get there quickly by air.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

BikerBrook on May 27, 2008 - 9:14pm

"It would not surprise me to see the re-introduction of trans ocean passenger shipping again for inter continental travel, but the number of trips that individuals make via this means may be limited to no more than one in a lifetime."

I would really like to see this. Yeah, forget airships. What inefficiency! But ships ? You can pack lots of people on a ship. I'd like to see an 'economy' passage ... which would not include meals, but where there would be non-fancy food offered as desired. This could be very viable I think. If I were in the ocean liner business I'd start developing a plan for such crossings. I think people would flock to it.

Comments can no longer be added to this story.

Not ManCon on May 27, 2008 - 3:54am

The business model will have to change. They will need to begin with the assumption that flying will be very expensive, and thus only the upper crust of business and leisure travelers will be able to afford it. Those who can afford it will only fly when there is a substantial time savings to be achieved over ground transport, because for them, time is money.

I agree that the business model will have to change (akin to the difference between a low cost carrier like EasyJet and a "regular" carrier like British Airways). However, with the recent collapses of Eon and MaxJet, and the imminent collapse of SilverJet, all business-class only airlines (and hence specifically designed for the "time is money" brigade), the survivors will probably be a different model again. Perhaps it will be more along the lines of spot-hire business jet travel with 10-15 seat aircraft, rather than anything with 100+ seat airliners.

AKH

Comments can no longer be added to this story.