…that have been shown to reduce aerodynamic drag by 1%. According to Lufthansa, if resurfaced with AeroShark coating, the global fleet of long-haul aircraft could reduce overall fuel burn by some 5 million tons per year.
Hmmmm. 5 million tons is a large value.
A brief search reveals that the global long-haul fleet currently consumes an estimated 180 million tons of fuel annually. 5 million tones is 2.7% of this consumption. This suggests that the claimed 1% reduction in drag leads to a 2.7% reduction in fuel usage. Any reduction in drag is good, and any reduction in fuel consumption and consequent pollution is great. However, skipping over the Breguet range equation and our other performance idealizations, the best that I can say about the claim being repeated here is that it appears to be unsupported by the data.