Just to show you how much markup there is at the pump, we get a fax every Tuesday from a broker that we buy bulk Jet A fuel from. The fax has the price for the next 7 days. We order through this broker, he orders from another middleman, who in turn orders from the supplier. We order a tanker load at a time, around 7,500 gallons or so. That limit is based upon highway weight restrictions and temperature of the fuel. In Michigan we might be able to order over 30,000 gallons brought by one truck. due to the higher allowed highway weights.
Last Tuesday our Jet A cost including all taxes and including about $250 transportation costs was $ 1.669 per gallon for a tanker load. An additional 2 cents per gallon is added for anti-ice additive that some, not all, jets need. We have tried to reduce the middleman by a factor of just one to no avail. Over the past 6 years each time we needed a load of fuel our check of 3-4 brokers for the best price has never shown a difference of more than 1/2 cents per gallon. Everyone is on the same page there. About 7-8 years ago a rep for a supplier told me that I could estimate the dealer cost of 100 Low Lead by looking at the pump price of the lowest grade car gas in the area. If the lowest price car gas was $ .88 per gallon then that is what the dealer was paying for 100 oct. Using the same formula today for Iowa, car gas is $ 1.61 and 100 oct is selling for $3.10 so maybe the market up is over a dollar a gallon now. Like the commercial says, " Flying your own KR..... priceless " Kevin
