Theory and Practice of Aircraft Performance

CHAPTER 17Operating Costs

17.1 Overview

The civil aviation industry expects a return on investment, with cash flowing back to allow growth in a self‐sustaining manner, with or without some government assistance. Sustenance and growth of civil aviation depends upon profitability. In a free market economy, industry and operators face severe competition to survive, forcing them to operate under considerable pressure to manage manufacture and operation in a lean manner. Economic considerations are the main drivers for commercial aircraft operation, and in some ways also for military aircraft. This chapter primarily deals with commercial aircraft operation, and discusses the pertinent aspects of cost implications related to military aircraft.

Aircraft direct operating cost (DOC) is the most important parameter that concerns airline operators. The DOC will depend on how many passengers the aircraft carries for what range, and the unit is expressed in $/seat‐nm. There are standard rules, for example from the Association of European Airlines (AEA) [1] and the Aircraft Transport Association (ATA), for the DOC comparison. Each industry/airline has their own DOC ground rules suiting their administrative infrastructure, which results in different values compared with what is obtained from standard methods. Typically, aircraft performance engineers do the DOC estimation.

For mid‐size commercial aircraft operation, the ownership cost contribution to the DOC could be as high as a third to ...