Wide Body

explain the impact the wide body jet aircraft on the aviation industry with regard to passanger fares &travel.

A big consideration in calculating a fare is for an airline to determine "seat-mile cost..." In other words, how much does it cost to operate an airliner for a given flight and then dividing the total cost by the number of seats in the airplane.

The airline has to pay the mortgage or lease on the airplane, fuel, insurance, scheduled and unplanned maintenance, crew salaries and benefits, ground handling expenses, etc.

Today fares from the United States to Europe, for example, can be lower than they were in the 1950's...even WITHOUT adjusting for inflation.

My Grandparents once flew to Europe in the 1960's and each paid about $300.00 one-way.

I flew to Europe not long ago for $189.00 one-way.

Generally speaking, with ever improving technology, the more seats you can put into an airplane, the lower you can charge each passenger to pay his "share" of those expenses.

An airliner makes money for an airline ONLY when it's in the air...an aircraft sitting at a gate or in a hangar is not generating any revenue. Also, an airliner is most fuel efficient at cruise altitude...so if you can provide a long 8 hour flight, the seat-cost per mile will be much lower than for a flight in the same type of aircraft that flies say, a 45 minute flight. (Most fuel is used during take-off and climb...when the aircraft is heaviest.)

So, the advent of wide-body aircraft with fuel efficient engines drastically reduced the average seat-cost per mile in most instances. In some cases, a single wide-body flight could replace two flights in a smaller old-technology airliner.

The end result was that airlines were able to lower fares, thus attracting passengers who had previously been unable or unwilling to pay the higher fares.

http://adg.stanford.edu/aa241/cost/cost.html

http://www.usatoday.com/travel/columnist/grossman/2006-02-06-grossman_x.htm?csp=34