FlightCost — free airline route economics calculator

Pick a route, an aircraft type and a load factor — FlightCost calculates the cost of the flight by item and shows at which fare and load factor it breaks even. Every number shows its origin: a published tariff, a calculation or an assumption you should replace with your own.

What it calculates

• Fuel — burn from the OpenAP model calibrated on published flights, alternate airport, fuel price.
• Airport charges — landing, passenger, security, noise and emissions — from published airport tariffs.
• Air navigation — en-route charges by zone (Eurocontrol and national), routing around closed airspace.
• Ownership and lease, maintenance (per hour and per cycle), crew — per-type defaults you can override.
• Revenue, break-even fare and break-even load factor; reverse solve — the value at which a flight breaks even.
• Route networks from a base, comparison of aircraft types on one network, fleet report in PDF and Excel with live formulas.

Where the data comes from

• Airport and air navigation tariffs — from published documents; parsed values are confirmed by a human.
• Aircraft types — the open OpenAP library (TU Delft) and a catalogue from manufacturer documents, with source links.
• Actual airline costs — US reporting (BTS Form 41) to check maintenance and crew rates.
• Fares and demand — market observations and a population-based flow model; an estimate is always marked as one.

How far you can trust it

Every number is coloured by origin: document, calculation, your value or assumption. Assumptions are not operator data: replace them with your own before deciding anything. The code and methodology are open, so discrepancies can be checked and fixed.

Who it is for

Airline network planners and analysts for a first look at a route; lessors and consultants; students and teachers of air transport economics; airline simulator players who want realistic flight economics.

FAQ

Aircraft types · Data · Data map · GitHub