For all the pre-flight planning, sometimes excess fuel is an issue that must be addressed later ...

For nervous travelers, an aircraft's landing marks one of the flight's most harrowing moments. For the pilot and crew, it marks the completion of yet another successful journey 30,000 feet in the air.

It isn't an easy feat designing a safe commercial airliner that can weigh almost 153,000 pounds to land on a runway without damaging itself. Planes are also allowed to be heavier at takeoff than their ...