Title: Improvement of the cost index as initiative of fuel efficiency promotion in a low cost airline
Abstract: The elaboration of this project has as main objective the improvement of the cost index currently used in the Airbus A319 fleet of Volotea, which was initially and provisionally adopted from the value used in Boeing B717 fleet. Detected the need of updating this parameter in the new aircraft, it has been analysed its direct influence over three main parameters; fuel consumption, flight time spent and extra costs; by taking intern confidential data provided by the airline, as well as studying simulations done with the Airbus FLIP module of PEP software. Once obtained the required results, they have been presented in form of graphics in order to interpret them in a clear and concise way. Regarding the conclusions, it has been firstly seen that at high cost indices (from 40) the amount of flight hours saved from flying faster does not compensate the high fuel consumption obtained, giving considerable large extra costs. Moreover, reducing the cost index below 15 has not resulted interesting at all neither because costs obtained are really similar to those acquired when adopting cost indices about 20, 25 or 30 but spending large flight times. The optimization of operations allowed by the time saving of settings about 20 and 30, makes this option the most interesting and convenient for Volotea. Secondly, it has been proved the effect of maintenance and fuel prices over the total costs. It was not initially evident, in any case, to intuit that, below cost index 15, extra costs increase when prices also do and at the same time, above 15, costs increase when prices decrease. Another remarkable fact is the influence of the load factor and the horizontal flight distance. Both parameters have been shown to have a significant effect on the results. Finally, this project also suggests, at the end, different steps and considerations to keep in mind if desired to extend the study and reach the corresponding value that optimizes the cost index for the new fleet.
Publication Year: 2016
Publication Date: 2016-06-23
Language: en
Type: dissertation
Access and Citation
AI Researcher Chatbot
Get quick answers to your questions about the article from our AI researcher chatbot