Fuel burn by aircraft type

US airlines report how much fuel each type of aircraft burned. In 2025, the Airbus A321neo flew 105.0 seat-miles per gallon and the Embraer 175 flew 44.9. The Boeing 737-800, the workhorse, managed 79.1 and burned 951 gallons for every hour it was in the air.

A passenger jet cruising above a layer of cloud — Illustrative photo, not a specific airline's aircraft.

Seat-miles per gallon, type by type

Seat-miles per gallon, 2025. More is better. Types marked with a dagger are matched to their name from the data, not from the BTS code table; see the note at the end.

What the table shows

The new engines pay off

Five pairs of aircraft let's compare a new-engine type with the older type it replaces in the same family. Airbus A320neo is 36% ahead of the Airbus A320-200 for seat-miles per gallon, and even the smallest improvement, Airbus A330-900 against the Airbus A330-300, is 13%. A passenger on one of the newer types is responsible for noticeably less CO2 over the same trip.

Airbus A320neo against the Airbus A320-200: 100.6 against 74.0 seat-miles per gallon (36% better).
Airbus A321neo against the Airbus A321: 105.0 against 77.9 seat-miles per gallon (35% better).
Boeing 737 MAX 9 against the Boeing 737-900ER: 100.3 against 81.4 seat-miles per gallon (23% better).
Boeing 737 MAX 8 against the Boeing 737-800: 96.8 against 79.1 seat-miles per gallon (22% better).
Airbus A330-900 against the Airbus A330-300: 78.6 against 69.4 seat-miles per gallon (13% better).

Burning more per hour can still mean burning less per seat

The Airbus A320neo burns 780 gallons an hour, 1.2 times what the Embraer 175 burns (642). Yet it uses only 4.3 gallons per seat per airborne hour against 8.6 for the Embraer 175. A bigger aircraft burns more fuel but spreads it over many more seats, and that's why airlines keep choosing larger jets for busy routes.

The same plane, a different result by airline

The widest gap between airlines flying the same type is on the Airbus A319: Allegiant Air got 73.5 seat-miles per gallon from it and American Airlines 54.1, a gap of 36%. Seats per flight, flight length and taxi time all change the result, which is why an aircraft type isn't the whole story and the airline rankings matter too.

Where the fuel actually goes

Three types account for the most fuel: Boeing 737-800 (11.9%), Airbus A321 (8.3%), Boeing 737 MAX 8 (6.9%) of all the fuel burned on scheduled passenger flying. Improving the efficiency of the busiest narrow-bodies moves the industry total more than anything done to rare long-haul types.

The 25 types side by side

2025 fuel burn by aircraft type

Aircraft	Seats per flight	Gallons per airborne hour	Seat-miles per gallon	kg CO2 per seat, 1,000 miles	Biggest operators
Airbus A321neo	200	889	105.0	92.9	American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, Frontier Airlines
Airbus A320neo	182	780	100.6	96.9	Frontier Airlines, Spirit Airlines
Boeing 737 MAX 9	179	828	100.3	97.2	United Airlines, Alaska Airlines
Boeing 737 MAX 8	172	800	96.8	100.8	Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, American Airlines
Boeing 787-10	318	1,976	86.2	113.1	United Airlines
Boeing 737-900ER	179	992	81.4	119.8	Delta Air Lines, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines
Boeing 757-300	234	1,386	79.3	123.0	United Airlines, Delta Air Lines
Boeing 737-800	170	951	79.1	123.3	American Airlines, Southwest Airlines, United Airlines
Airbus A330-900	281	1,844	78.6	124.1	Delta Air Lines
Airbus A321	185	1,076	77.9	125.2	American Airlines, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue
Airbus A330-200	261	1,734	76.1	128.2	Hawaiian Airlines, Delta Air Lines
Boeing 787-9	264	1,884	74.5	130.8	United Airlines, American Airlines
Airbus A350-900	295	2,090	74.3	131.2	Delta Air Lines
Airbus A320-200	163	961	74.0	131.7	JetBlue, Allegiant Air, United Airlines
Boeing 787-8	236	1,713	73.0	133.5	American Airlines, United Airlines
Airbus A220-300	136	804	72.2	135.0	JetBlue, Breeze Airways, Delta Air Lines
Airbus A330-300	282	2,088	69.4	140.4	Delta Air Lines
Boeing 737-700	141	867	68.7	141.9	Southwest Airlines, United Airlines, Alaska Airlines
Boeing 757-200	183	1,242	68.5	142.2	Delta Air Lines, United Airlines
Boeing 767-400ER	233	1,882	63.1	154.5	Delta Air Lines, United Airlines
Boeing 777-300ER	329	2,784	62.8	155.3	United Airlines, American Airlines
Boeing 777-200	288	2,413	62.4	156.3	United Airlines, American Airlines
Airbus A319	131	952	58.1	168.0	American Airlines, United Airlines, Delta Air Lines
Boeing 767-300ER	196	1,684	58.0	168.0	Delta Air Lines, United Airlines
Embraer 175	75	642	44.9	217.0	SkyWest Airlines, Republic Airways, Envoy Air

How to read this

Browse aircraft by manufacturer: Airbus, Boeing. The glossary explains the units.

Source: US Bureau of Transportation Statistics (BTS), Schedule T-2 aircraft fuel and traffic filings; US EPA jet-fuel CO2 factor.

Fuel is what airlines issued to each type in 2025, as filed with the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics, counted only for the hours spent on scheduled passenger flights. It's divided by the hours the type spent in the air, so it includes fuel burned taxiing and holding and is higher than the cruise figure you'll see in a manual. A seat-mile is one seat flown one mile, whether or not a passenger sits in it, so these figures describe the aircraft and its cabin, not how full the flights were. CO2 is 9.75 kg per gallon of jet fuel.

Type names come from the BTS aircraft type code table. One label needed a judgement: BTS now describes code 699 as an A321neo XLR, but flights under that code run from 2003 with 170 to 190 seats, years before that variant existed, so we call it the A321. Methods for the airline figures are on the methodology page.

See the airline-by-airline results on the airline pages, and the regional jets on the regional airlines pages.