As my FO and I were taxiing out the other day in EWR, we started pondering the point at which it's cheaper to run the engines vs shutting them down. Fuel seems to be creeping up rather quickly again, and with 25 planes waiting to take off, at what point does it make sense to just "shut'em down"? ATC seems to be pretty reluctant to give departure times, but sitting for 30 minutes just seems a bit much to sit and burn fuel. Any number crunchers our there with some "stats" for us?
