"Mike Rapoport" wrote in message
ink.net...
Of course this is basically true for any two aircraft, the larger one will
get more passenger miles per gallon. A 777 gets a lot more than a 737 for
instance. The same is true for car vs bus.

There are two numbers that tell the story: the weight of the vehicle per
passenger carried, and the speed at which the vehicle travels. All other
things being equal, it takes more power (and thus fuel) to carry more
weight, and more power to carry a given amount of weight faster. If I
throttled my 172 back to highway speeds I suspect the fuel consumption would
rival many cars', though the same could not be said for payload.

One interesting result of this is that many more modern passenger jets
consume less fuel per passenger-mile than high-speed trains, because the
trains carry a lot more dead weight per passenger. It is thus quite likely
that the BOS-LGA shuttle operates at a higher fuel efficiency than the
high-speed Amtrak train making the same trip.

Best,
-cwk.