Planes Could Save Serious Fuel Just by Riding the Wind

Scientists say even tiny changes to airplane routes could save millions of kilograms of fuel each year, using up to 16 percent less fuel in the process. The secret is to empower individual flights to shift into the jet stream. This can be accomplished using technology we already have.

In a new study, which appears in Environmental Research Letters, scientists from the U.K. analyzed 35,000 flights going both ways between London and New York. The scientists assembled a computer model that crunches the numbers in a simplified form in order to estimate total fuel savings based on small route changes.

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