Is Cheap is really cheap?

Have you ever wondered how much does it cost to run an airplane from Jakarta to Surabaya?

- I don’t have the fact of how many KM from Jakarta to Surabaya but if it was taken by how long a railtrack from Jakarta to Surabaya it’s about 820 km long. (http://tinyurl.com/ypjwfc)

- Most of Indonesian airlines are using either an old Boeing 737-200 or Boeing 737-300 or Boeing 737-400. For this example I will take Boeing 737-300. Boeing 737-300 has 137 seats and the fuel consumption for this airplane it’s about 547 Liter/ (100) KM. (http://strickland.ca/efficiency.html)

- Oil price? Well to be honest I don’t have the fact on how much a Jet Fuel cost in Indonesia but I would assume it would be the same as in any other countries except maybe the tax differences. I would have thought too unlike commercial petrol – jet fuel isn’t subsidized by the Indonesian government so it’s pretty safe to make assumption that the price is almost the same. On March 2006 for a barrel JET FUEL (not a crude oil) it costs about USD$87.44. Remember that 1 barrel = 159 liter.

Based on these assumption the journey from Jakarta to Surabaya consumes about = 820/100*547 = 4485.4 Liter/Journey.
4485.4 /159 = 28.21 Barrel/Journey
And it will cost about = 28.21 Barrel * USD87.44 = +- USD2466 for a journey to Surabaya from Jakarta.
Thus it costs about (assuming 130 people on board) = USD 2466 / 130 = USD 19 dollar / person which equivalent to (assuming 1USD = 9000 rupiah) = RP 171000 (171 thousand rupiah)

Well of course this is naïve assumption, in the reality the fuel consumption is usually higher. I remembered that My Honda Civic Fuel consumption is about 6Litre / 100KM it is according to Honda but in the reality it consumes much more than that due to traffic condition and the age of the engine. Of course when it is new its fuel efficient but as it starts getting older its performance decreases.

Finally, not surprisingly a lot of airlines still offer cheap airfares ticket. But at least we and you know that if we could get a ticket for less than 200 rupiah for the trip from Jakarta to Surabaya, it’s only cover the fuel only and not the maintenance of the fleet it’s self. So the fear factor is still there :P