New aircraft will temper, not tame, jet fuel demand

Jet fuel will take a growing share of global oil demand in the coming years as air traffic surges, despite the best efforts of airlines to burn less by flying bigger planes on longer routes carrying less garbage.

A new breed of jumbo jet will cut per-passenger fuel demand by 15 percent, and also travel longer distances, limiting fuel-intensive landing and take-off, analysts and experts say.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) forecasts jet-kerosene fuel growth of 2.4 percent a year to the end of this decade, up from 1.9 percent in the 1990s.
This is far slower than the 5.6 percent increase in global air traffic expected by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) through 2009, fuelled by a booming global economy and rising leisure travel by a wealthier middle-class.

“High prices are driving an increase in airline efficiency, limiting growth in jet fuel demand,” said analyst Linda Giesecke, with Boston-based Energy Security Analysis Inc. (ESAI), which forecasts global jet fuel growth of just over 2 percent to 2010.

But the growth is quicker than the IEA’s estimate of overall oil consumption growth at 2 percent, indicating a growing share of the demand barrel will be diverted to aviation fuel, which accounts for about 5 percent of global oil demand.

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