Airbus, Europe based leading plane maker, has announced to work on increasing fuel efficiency of the planes using large wingtips on the A320 aircraft. The move, as per the company, would help to save as much as $220,000 a year per plane by reducing fuel consumption by 3.5 per cent.

The firm claimed that it would also prove beneficial for environment as it would reduce carbon emissions as much as 700 tonnes.

John Leahy, Airbus' Chief Operating Officer informed that the alterations would be done in the A320 plans which would hit skies in 2012 on its scheduled delivery. He added that that the new arrangement would also reduce the maintenance costs of engine by 2 per cent.

The European aircraft-maker said that the future A320-family jetliners would be introduced by Air New Zealand by the end of 2012. The vertical wingtips or sharklets would strengthen the wing box of plane by adding additional weight of 200kg.

However, the additional weight would be adjusted through computer modeling according to Air Bus Executive Vice-president of sales and marketing customer affairs, Dr. Kiran Rao.