Since we in the UK are in the midst of a rather irritating fuel-price protest (with almost every petrol station in the country either dry or suffering hour-long queues), it struck me today - how do airports get their fuel?
Given the volumes required, I’d have thought that there would have to be a constant procession of road tankers arriving, if that was the answer. On the other hand, I can’t see that it would be practical to pipe fuel in from refineries.
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe there’s a huge fuel line running underneath London to Heathrow…
I believe that most large airports have large fuel storage tanks above or underground. These will last a while, although I wouldn’t be surprised to see flight cancellations over this weekend if the blockade continues. I guess that flying in fuel is another alternative (although possibly not particularly safe or cost-effective).
It’s worth noting that some of the Train Operating Companies have started cancelling diesel train services already.
Logan Airport in Boston has millions of gallons of jet fuel, avgas, and the like stored in aboveground and underground tanks. I don’t know how much fuel a typical jetliner uses or how many take off from Logan daily, but it’s a safe bet that the supply would last a while.
As for how the fuel gets there in the first place, I’d guess that it comes in by rail – tanker trucks would be impractical given the amount of fuel you’re dealing with.
Just got of the phone with the fuel supplier for Los Angeles Int’l Airport. They have a tank farm at the airport, and the fuel is piped in from the nearby refineries.
I’ve noticed that fuel trucks at the gate tap into underground supplies to pump the fuel into the aircraft. But to get the fuel into the airport in the first place, LAX pipes it in.
(Geez, when I fly out of VNY they just pull a truck up to the helicopter and the lineman fills it like a car!)
I don’t know for sure how aviation fuel gets to a large airport like Heathrow, but maybe we can make some assumptions from the fuel capacity of, say, a Boeing 747. I suspect the actual methods and technical details aren’t going to be published for security reasons.
Yow! That’s an enormous volume of fuel. This tanker truck has a capacity of only 5000 gallons; it’d take more than 11 of those just to fill one 747. Just a loose supposition leads me to believe large airports must use an underground pipeline.
…can’t speak for all major airports, but here at Vancouver International(CYVR) the fuel is pipelined in from a refinery and storage “tank farm” several miles away in a suburb. There are two contractors who service the multiple airlines, corporate, and private users. Some is delivered to the aircraft at the gate from groundlevel outlets at the gate, while some is tranfered to trucks/bowsers for delivery to aircraft. Smaller fields have it trucked in and stored on site; I assume the criteria is cost-effectiveness here.
Vancouver’s airport is also built on a river delta (elevation 9 feet) so underground tanks would not be practical here.
This could be all academic anyhow, as turbine powered aircraft (jets and turboprops) use kerosene, and the rising price of same is not the likely cause for protest in Europe we are seeing today.
“You screw up just this much, and find yourself flying a cargo plane full of rubber dogshit outta Hong Kong!”
