HAMBURG, Germany_The aviation industry, faced with skyrocketing fuel prices, is striving in many ways to improve aircraft efficiency, experts at the Aircraft Interiors Expo said Tuesday.
"Everybody is trying to optimize - manufactures and suppliers," said Thorsten Nagel, a product manager with Lufthansa Technik in Hamburg.
The firm, a unit of the German airline Lufthansa, is one of the largest maintenance, repair and overhaul companies in the world. It is constantly working on reducing the weight and increasing the fuel efficiency of aircraft, Nagel said.
"Today's engines, for example, don't need the same amount of fuel for the same amount of power," he said. "We're supporting companies, and manufactures of parts in their ideas to become more efficient."
Even replacing overhead storage bins, window parts and ceiling panels with lighter materials can reduce weight enough for an aircraft to save fuel, Nagel said.
Boeing, too, is constantly looking to improve aircraft efficiency, said Klaus Brauer, Boeing's director of Passenger Satisfaction and Revenue.
The latest version of the company's well-known 747-8 boasts 15 percent better fuel efficiency than the last generation 747-400 series of the aircraft, Brauer said, thanks to lighter materials, better engines, and more advanced aerodynamic engineering.
New materials and redesign have also helped save fuel costs.
"When we first built the 747 we didn't know how strong we would have to build it so we built it extra strong," Brauer said. "Today, we don't have to use as much aluminum, but are using a lot more composite plastics in its place."
