Tankering: when buying fuel early actually saves money

Tankering — uplifting more fuel than the sector requires at a cheap station to avoid buying at an expensive one — is one of the few genuinely large cost levers available on a trip sheet. It is also routinely misapplied, because the intuitive version of the calculation ignores the cost of carrying the fuel you are saving money on.

The cost of carrying fuel

Extra fuel is extra weight, and extra weight burns fuel. The rule of thumb across most business jets is that carrying an additional unit of fuel costs somewhere between three and five percent of that unit per flight hour, depending on aircraft type, cruise altitude and stage length. On a short sector the penalty is small and tankering is often worthwhile. On a long sector at a lower initial cruise altitude, the penalty compounds and can erase a substantial price differential entirely.

What 'delivered all-in' has to include

• Product price at the agreed contract rate, not the posted rate.
• Into-plane fee, which varies enormously between stations and is frequently the difference that decides the comparison.
• Local taxes and duties, plus any exemption your operation qualifies for.
• Any handling or apron fee that is triggered by the uplift itself.
• Currency and payment terms, which matter more than they appear when volumes are large.

The cases where tankering is nearly always right

Short sectors into a station with no contract fuel presence, a punitive into-plane fee, or a genuine supply risk. Also any station where refuelling would extend the turnaround beyond the slot — in that case the saving is not financial at all, it is the trip itself.

And where it usually is not

Long sectors where the weight penalty compounds, any sector where the extra fuel would push the aircraft into a lower initial cruise level, and anywhere payload is already constrained. Tankering that costs you a passenger seat or a bag is rarely economic.