Hacker News Reader

Comment by elil17 | Hacker News Reader

Boeing lists aircraft prices for commercial planes: https://www.boeing.com/company/about-bca/#/prices

(Although they note that the actual price may vary by configuration, so I guess it's not as "pure" of a list price compared to SpaceX).

The highest there is $442.2 million. I wonder if there are any list prices out there higher than that?

View on HN

I was gonna reply with some random island for sale, as those usually are very expensive. But they don't come near the 442.2 million USD figure, most expensive I can find is 133,467,632 EUR (https://www.jamesedition.com/real_estate/ko-kaeo-thailand/pr...).

Interesting that a whole island costs the same amount or less than just one airplane.

Real estate is usually all about location, land itself is plentiful and cheap around the world, it's all the stuff required to make it livable and proximity to where people want to be that's expensive.

The planes are so expensive because they're specialized planes meant to be in the air nearly 24 hours a day - this justifies spending a huge amount of money on improving their fuel efficiency. A friend who works in large commercial aircraft once told me that the break-even point for money spent redesigning planes to be lighter was $1,000,000 in R&D spending per pound of weight saved. Older models which are typically used for intermittent cargo service can cost just $20m for a 747.

$1,000,000 per lb for R&D is steep, but at this stage in the game makes sense.

I wonder what the unit price for a break-even 1lb saving would be. Is it worth spending $20,000 to shave off a pound with expensive materials?

About $2600 per pound.

Based on this forum thread [1] the marginal cost per pound to fuel efficienciy is about "0.0155 gallons per pound per 1,000 statute miles". Over a 737's life it may fly about 50 million miles [2]. Combining facts one and two results in a fuel consumption per marginal pound of 775 gallons. Current jet fuel prices are about $3.40 per gal [3].

[1] https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/712294-anyone-kno...

[2] https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/columnist/cox/2012/11/...

[3] https://www.iata.org/en/publications/economics/fuel-monitor/

Wow, thanks for the effort put into answering a passing curiosity!

Of course any change to the aircraft has many other downstream implications (ability to source parts for repairs, lifetime of the part, maintenance requirements), but it's cool to think that for an "all else the same" replacement that the bar is still so high.

With the falling costs of advanced materials I do wonder if next gen aircraft will be substantially different.

If that’s the case, why is e.g. 10% of a 787 still using steel rather than titanium, which can be had at 11$ per kg?

The challenge is with design, certification, and manufacturing (forming and joining), not with affording the material. Plus, high strength steels can bear more stress than titanium, although they weigh more. This may be needed for certain space-constrained components.

Makes sense, thanks.

That doesn't make sense. So if I buy a top spec model and make it 400lbs lighter I can double the price?

If you could take a top spec model, cut the weight by 400lbs without effecting the crafts capability, you could certainly sell it at a premium yeah, it would be some difference between the current price and the fuel cost savings shedding 400lbs casuses over the lifetime of the aircraft. Cerium estimated $2,600 per lb over the lifetime of the craft so yeah, that's a ~$1,040,000 in value there.

A 1 lb saving saves $2,600 in fuel costs over the life of the craft.

However, an airline's break even point is a portion of that (perhaps $1,000) because the fuel costs are spread out over the life of the craft and there is an opportunity cost to spending money on the more efficient plane.

Of that $1,000, the aircraft maker will only capture a portion of the value - the airline expects to do better than break even. The airplane manufacturer may be able to charge $500 more for the aircraft.

They might hope to make 2,000 aircraft for something big like a 787 (although that number varies a lot depending on the model). That's 2,000 units times $500 = $1 million.

Aha, across all units, that makes more sense. I thought it was per unit and it off by a few orders of magnitude.

Well that's the break even price. They want to have most 1lb improvements cost them less than a million dollars.

> Older models which are typically used for intermittent cargo service can cost just $20m for a 747.

With the bulk of that being the value of the four engines - an old airframe is pretty much just scrap metal.

Because you have to manufacture a plane, and island was manufactured by someone else who wasn't paid.

Oh, they are paid. According to the contract they take various types of payment ranging from: Sunday mornings drinking bad wine, tithes all the way to lifelong celibacy and blood sacrifice.

Thank you for that rabbit hole! The most expensive one is the 777-9. It's apparently the longest and widest plane ever[^1].

[^1]: https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/boeing-777x-9-first-fligh...

Do they take visa? PayPal? Bitcoin?

Probably Doge

Reply on news.ycombinator.com