What cost index does your airline use and why

[Freight Dog]

20 on our ETOPS legs unless we're running late - then it's a fair game to stay on time.

30-45 on domestic legs.

 

[starchkr]

10 is pretty crazy stayseated...it drives me nuts...I always want to fly at redline, but that is just the old freight dog in me coming out. We are told that we do fly the most economical fleet in the nation right now because of our cost idex use...but i too wonder about the long slow descents with power. Completely goes against everything taught while flying a turbine aircraft, but oh well.

 

[radarlove]

28 on the -300 and 36 on the -700. Why? Don't know. Laziness I presume. It would be easy to compute it each leg depending on winds and weight.

Gup

Actually, I had a SWA friend talk about this exact thing, since I wanted to know what the low cost beast used to save gas. I was totally surprised.

It appears that SWA uses a cost index that forces the 737-700s and 737-300s into the 737-200 descent profile, a leftover from trying to pretend the 737-200 and the 737-700 are the same airplane.

He claims that those two CIs force a 280 knot descent and that the guys in charge have forgotten that SWA doesn't fly 737-200s any more.

For what it's worth, maybe he's nuts.

 

[McNugget]

757 = CI 60, gives about .80 cruise.

 

[Propblast]

B6=35 usually (although I saw 80 last week).

-PB

 

[venr122]

Heres a follow up question....

The highest altitudes available in the box are in ECON, vs. a hard coded speed....so why, when ECON is showing .80 at say 35,000, why then when .80 is hard coded the altitude drops, just a couple hundred feet usually but does this every time.

 

[SuperFLUF]

Heres a follow up question....

The highest altitudes available in the box are in ECON, vs. a hard coded speed....so why, when ECON is showing .80 at say 35,000, why then when .80 is hard coded the altitude drops, just a couple hundred feet usually but does this every time.

Probably because ECON does not maintain that .80 number the whole way. It varies based on gross weight, OAT, winds....etc.

 

[SuperFLUF]

........ I can't figure out how a long slow descent with power saves fuel, but they say it does.

That must be an Airbus thing. The econ descent profile in all the Boeings I've flown is an idle descent no matter what the speed. So the lower descent speed translates to a longer time period at flight idle and thus saves fuel.

 

[geshields]

Does anyone use the RTA function to get the CI when you are runing late?

 

[FlyWolf]

18 at Midex, why? because thats what the numbers guru guy say we should use