Southwest Airlines Engine Washing

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Mon, 06/16/2008 - 14:51 — Christi Day

Video:

Southwest Airlines signed an agreement to use an environmentally friendly engine-washing system in an effort to save on fuel and cut carbon emissions.

I wonder if there is a similar solution for my car engine?? Check out this video to see what it takes to wash an engine!

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Comments

That's some LUV for mother earth. When are you going finish outfitting winglets on your fleet?

Kevin — Fri, 06/27/2008 - 13:23

Hey Kevin - We've aleady installed winglets on all of our 737-700 aircraft, and our goal is to add them to around 40 percent of our 737-300 aircraft (90 out of 219) by the end of 2008.
As of last month, 40 of those 90 aircraft have been modified. By the time we complete our -300 installations, we will have approximately 400 aircraft (-300 & -700) equipped with Blended Winglets.

BTW...Winglets on the -700 aircraft save us approx. 92,000 gallons of fuel per aircraft annually (approximately 3 percent per aircraft), and winglets on the -300 aircraft are estimated to save us approx. 74,000 gallons of fuel per aircraft annually (a little less than 3 percent per aircraft).

Paula Berg — Fri, 06/27/2008 - 13:54

This is so cool how you guys can manage all these aircraft and make sure they all get out safely. =)

Nick Tyson — Sun, 06/29/2008 - 06:11

That is really cool. I have seen you guys doing that before, when I have driven along Denton drive at night. I always wondered what this was. Do you guys try and do this every night on every aircraft, or just select aircraft?

Oh, I also love the winglets on the -300s. Any plans to incorporate them on the -500s like a fellow Texas airline has done?

Joseph R. Meyers

Dallas, Texas

JoeDal — Sun, 06/29/2008 - 11:53

JoeDal – I’m not aware of plans to add the winglets to our -500 aircraft, but I’m not sure of the reason. Perhaps it’s because we only have 22 -500’s remaining in our fleet, and our efforts are better directed to our greater number of -300’s. I’ll see if I can find an answer.

In the meantime, I can share a few more interesting facts about the Engine washing…

Based on our current fleet of 737-700 aircraft, we are estimating an annual savings of 134 million lbs. of carbon dioxide annually. And, estimate fuel savings from April 1, 2008 to current is $1.6M.

Every pound of jet fuel saved reduces carbon dioxide emission by 3.1 pounds.

As of May 21, 2008 SWA had accomplished 248 washes, with an estimated elimination of 16.6 million pounds of carbon dioxide.

We are now performing four engine washes per night each in Oakland and Orlando (although we have performed them at Dallas as well, as you may have seen).

Paula Berg — Mon, 06/30/2008 - 12:33

As a pilot of corporate jets I found this technique fascinating. It certainly beats the old garden sprayer way of doing this job. One comment regarding the people doing the job: I didn't see ANYONE wearing hearing protection. As an old, experienced (and somewhat deaf) pilot I can tell you this is not a good thing.

Warren — Mon, 02/23/2009 - 08:48

I thought I was computer savvy , but i can't get the video to load

Poor Ol Curt — Fri, 04/03/2009 - 11:27

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