Average Starting Salaries. According to salary surveys conducted by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), mechanical engineering graduates with a master's degree earned an average starting salary of $66,158 in 2009 and $69,954 in 2010. This average starting salary rose to $74,300 in 2011.
A plane like a Boeing 747 uses approximately 1 gallon of fuel (about 4 liters) every second. Over the course of a 10-hour flight, it might burn 36,000 gallons (150,000 liters). According to Boeing's Web site, the 747 burns approximately 5 gallons of fuel per mile (12 liters per kilometer). This sounds like a tremendously poor miles-per-gallon rating! But consider that a 747 can carry as many as 568 people.
However, we're still left with figuring the cost of the 5.5 gallons of jet fuel, and that again depends on what price the operator is able to buy the fuel at. Today's fuel prices, depending on where and when it was purchased, can range from $3.50 to $5.50 per gallon and more.So, if we guess at an average of $5 per gallon, we get a cost for fuel of $27.50 per mile.This is a very rough figure for fuel costs only, and doesn't include any of the many other costs associated with operating the aircraft.Hope that helps some... 15 people found this useful.   To give you a rough idea, however, we can look at fuel cost per mile for a 747-400 Freighter. Average fuel usage is around 3,200 gph and it cruises at around 585 mph, so a rough average fuel usage for a 747 would work out to around 5.5 gallons per mile.