A Boeing 767 burns roughly 1,600 gallons of jet fuel every hour it cruises. On a five-hour, 2,500-mile flight that adds up to about 8,000 gallons — which sounds catastrophic for the environment until you remember the plane is carrying more than 200 people at once. Work the numbers per seat and the 767-300ER delivers around 68 miles per gallon per passenger, comfortably better than most cars on the road.
That framing comes from Bureau of Transportation Statistics data on US carriers, measured in available seat-miles per gallon — essentially how far a gallon of fuel moves one seat one mile. The most detailed public breakdown, from 2010, shows how much configuration matters. The 767-200ER scored anywhere from 48.67 at American Airlines to 60.58 at US Airways, purely because US Airways packed more seats into the same aircraft. The longer-bodied 767-300ER fared better across the board, scoring between about 60 and 64.5 at United, Delta and American.
Narrowbodies still beat it on paper. The 737-800 ranged from 74 to nearly 79, the A320 sat in the low-to-mid 70s, and Delta's high-density 757-300 topped the entire dataset at 83.53. But that comparison misses the point: the 767 was built to haul more people across oceans, not to win efficiency contests on two-hour domestic hops. Where the maths works is load factor. A 767-300ER at 85% full is moving around 185 passengers on its fuel burn versus roughly 138 on an equally-full 737-800. Fill the widebody and the per-passenger cost can match or beat the narrowbody. Fly it half-empty and the economics collapse — which is why airlines keep shifting the 767 off routes a single-aisle jet can handle.
Its replacements are pulling even further ahead. The 787 manages roughly 20-25% better fuel efficiency per seat thanks to composite construction and a new generation of engines, while the A321XLR is quietly taking over the thinner transatlantic routes where a 767 was always more plane than the demand justified.
For travellers, this matters in quiet ways. Efficiency per seat is a big part of how airlines keep long-haul fares viable, and it explains why you're increasingly likely to cross the Atlantic on an A321XLR or 787 rather than a 40-year-old design. It's also a useful reality check for anyone weighing the carbon cost of flying versus driving: a full widebody flight is, per person, genuinely competitive with a car carrying one or two people. The 767 still flies with several US carriers while fleets transition, so if you spot one on your next booking, you're boarding an aircraft that was genuinely efficient for its era — just not this one.
Simple Flying
