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About green-airlines.com

This site shows how far each US airline carries a passenger on a gallon of jet fuel, and what that means in CO2 for your trip.

What we measure

The main figure is passenger-miles per gallon: the miles flown by paying passengers divided by the jet fuel burned in scheduled passenger service. It counts both how efficient the aircraft are and how full the flights run. From it we work out CO2 per passenger-mile and CO2 for a trip of 500, 1,000 or 2,000 miles.

How the grades work

Each airline gets a letter from A to F by comparing its passenger-miles per gallon with the figure for all ranked airlines together in the same year. The bands are on the rankings page. A grade says nothing about safety, comfort, price or service.

Where the figures come from

Fuel and traffic data come from airline filings to the US Department of Transportation, published by the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The CO2 factor comes from the US EPA. Every step of the calculation, every choice we made and every limit is on the methodology page. The full table is a free CSV download.

Who runs it

green-airlines.com is an independent data project. It isn't affiliated with, sponsored by or endorsed by any airline, government agency or aircraft maker, and it doesn't take payment from airlines to change a grade.

Corrections

If a figure looks wrong, the corrections policy explains how to report it and how confirmed fixes are dated. The methodology page shows how figures were built so you can check them against the source filings.

Contact

Questions, corrections and data requests: [email protected]. See what to include when you write.

The glossary explains the terms used here. Browse aircraft through the manufacturer index.