Winglets & Sharklets: Why Modern Planes Have Bent Wingtips

Look out the window on almost any modern flight and the wing no longer ends in a flat point. It curls up. On an IndiGo A320neo that upturned tip is called a Sharklet; on an Air India Express 737 MAX it is a swept-back winglet. Different names, nearly identical purpose.

So why bend a wingtip at all? The short answer is fuel. The longer answer involves a clever piece of 1970s NASA research, a swirling pocket of air you usually can’t see, and a bit of airline marketing. Let’s walk through it.

Why do modern planes have bent wingtips?

Planes have bent wingtips to fight a specific, expensive problem: the wingtip vortex. NASA found that adding winglets to a transport aircraft could cut lift-induced drag by about 20% and lift the overall lift-to-drag ratio by 6 to 9 percent (NASA Spinoff, 2010). Less drag means less fuel burned to cover the same distance.

Here is the underlying physics, in plain terms. A wing makes lift because air pressure is lower above it than below. Near the wingtip, that high-pressure air below tries to curl around to the low-pressure air above, and it spins off the tip as a tight, rotating vortex. That spinning air is wasted energy — it’s drag you pay for but get nothing back from.

A winglet acts like a wall at the tip. It blocks some of that pressure leak and weakens the vortex, which raises the wing’s “effective aspect ratio” — roughly, it makes the wing behave as if it were longer and more efficient, without bolting on a huge extra span (Wikipedia, Wingtip vortices). A reduction is achieved in the energy lost to that circular airflow, so the aircraft slips through the air a little more cleanly.

The idea came from NASA aeronautical engineer Richard Whitcomb at Langley Research Center in the 1970s, who coined the very word “winglet” and published his findings in 1976 (NASA Spinoff, 2010). The work was pushed by the Aircraft Energy Efficiency programme after the 1973 oil crisis, and Whitcomb drew inspiration from the upturned tip feathers of soaring birds. NASA flight-tested the concept on a KC-135 tanker in 1979–80; those tests showed a 7% increase in lift-to-drag ratio with a 20% decrease in induced drag.

What’s the difference between a winglet and a Sharklet?

There is no aerodynamic difference worth speaking of — the gap is branding. “Winglet” is the general engineering term (and the one in Boeing’s lineage), while “Sharklet” is Airbus’s trademarked marketing name for the blended winglet it launched for the A320 family in 2009 (Wikipedia, Wingtip device). Both do the same job: weaken the tip vortex, trim drag, save fuel.

So if a friend insists “that’s not a winglet, it’s a Sharklet,” you’re both right. One is the category, the other is one company’s name for its version. Industry coverage puts it bluntly: the two serve the same purpose, with no significant aerodynamic difference between them (Simple Flying).

It’s worth crediting the lineage honestly, because the names can imply rival inventions. They aren’t. The winglet concept originated with NASA’s Whitcomb in the 1970s. Airbus’s Sharklet was close enough to Aviation Partners Boeing’s blended-winglet design that Aviation Partners filed a patent suit in December 2011; the dispute ended in a settlement whose terms were not made public, with Airbus keeping the right to carry on producing Sharklets (Flight Global).

How much fuel do winglets actually save?

In the real world, wingtip devices deliver roughly 4–6% fuel savings — that’s the honest figure to anchor on, straight from NASA (NASA Spinoff, 2010). But notice it’s a range, not a fixed number. The saving depends on the aircraft, the type of device, and above all the length of the flight.

Why does flight length matter so much? Most of a winglet’s benefit shows up in long, steady cruise — exactly the part of the journey a long-haul flight has lots of. Manufacturer figures reflect that: Boeing 737-800 blended winglets are quoted at around 4% on long-range flights, and Airbus cites up to about 4% from Sharklets over longer sectors (Wikipedia, Wingtip device). Treat those as “up to” maxima on the right kind of route, not the guaranteed saving on every hop.

The practical takeaway for an Indian flyer: on a one-hour Delhi–Mumbai dash the gain is modest, because the plane barely settles into cruise before it’s descending. On a Mumbai–London leg the same winglet has hours of cruise to work on, so the saving is far more meaningful. Small percentage, huge fuel bill — and across a big fleet it adds up fast.

How big can “adds up” get? Aviation Partners Boeing announced in 2010 that its blended-winglet programme had saved about 2 billion gallons of jet fuel worldwide, and that a typical Southwest 737-700 saves roughly 100,000 gallons of fuel a year (NASA Spinoff, 2010). Those are the company’s own numbers from 2010 — now around 16 years old, and about its specific winglets — so read them as a historical illustration of scale, not a current total for all winglets.

One number you may have seen online deserves a flag. Some articles cite “up to 33% fuel savings.” That figure belongs only to Tamarack Active Winglets — a load-alleviating system fitted mostly to business and general-aviation jets (Simple Flying). It does not apply to the passive Sharklets and winglets on the A320 or 737 you actually fly, which sit in that 4–6% band. If anyone quotes double-digit savings for an airliner winglet, be sceptical.

What are the different types of winglets?

Not all bent wingtips look alike, because manufacturers solved the same problem in different shapes. The wingtip fence — which extends both above and below the tip — was the early Airbus answer, and the A310-300 became the first airliner to fly with wingtip fences when it entered service in 1985 (Wikipedia, Wingtip device). You still see fences on many older A320ceo jets today.

Then there are raked wingtips, which extend the wing’s sweep at the tip rather than curling sharply upward. In testing by Boeing and NASA, raked tips reduced drag by as much as 5.5%, compared with 3.5% to 4.5% for conventional upturned winglets (Wikipedia, Wingtip device). The Boeing 787 Dreamliner uses raked wingtips. One caution: those are drag-reduction figures from flight testing, which aren’t the same thing as whole-flight fuel savings — keep the two metrics separate.

Here’s a quick guide to the main families and where you’ll spot them.

Device	Look	Seen on
Wingtip fence	Small fin above and below the tip	Older Airbus A320ceo, A310
Blended winglet	Smooth upward curve	Boeing 737NG; Airbus calls its version a Sharklet
Split scimitar	Curves up and down in a scimitar shape	Retrofit for Boeing 737NG (-700/-800/-900)
Advanced Technology (AT) winglet	Dual-feather split tip	Boeing 737 MAX (factory-fitted)
Raked wingtip	Extended, swept-back tip (no sharp upturn)	Boeing 787, 777-300ER

Two of those deserve a clarification, because they’re often muddled. The split scimitar winglet is an Aviation Partners Boeing design sold as a retrofit for the 737 Next Generation — the -700, -800 and -900 (Wikipedia, Wingtip device). The newer 737 MAX does not use it; it carries Boeing’s own factory-designed Advanced Technology winglet instead (Simple Flying). Boeing says the AT winglet is about 1.5% more efficient than the NG’s blended winglet — a small, manufacturer-stated gain, so treat it as roughly a percent or so rather than a hard independent fact.

And a history note worth getting right: the Boeing 747-400 is often called the first airliner with winglets, but it was really the first wide-body, jumbo jet to use them, entering service in 1989. The first production aircraft with winglets was the much smaller Learjet 28, back in 1977 (Wikipedia, Wingtip device).

Do winglets stop turbulence or make the ride smoother?

No — and this is a common mix-up. The vortices that winglets weaken are the primary component of wake turbulence, which is exactly why air traffic control keeps aircraft spaced apart on approach and departure (Wikipedia, Wingtip vortices). A heavy jet’s wake can roll a smaller following aircraft faster than its pilots could counter with the ailerons. That’s serious, and it’s why separation rules exist.

Winglets weaken those vortices, but they don’t eliminate them. Wake turbulence still forms, and ATC separation minimums still apply in full. So winglets are good news for the airline behind you and for overall efficiency, but they don’t remove the need to keep planes apart.

They also won’t smooth out your ride. The bumps you feel in the cabin usually come from the atmosphere — rising thermals, jet-stream shear, weather — not from your own wingtip vortex. The sourced benefit of a winglet is drag, fuel and range, not passenger ride comfort. If turbulence is what’s on your mind, the physics of why a flight bumps is a separate story.

Do winglets cause those white streaks behind planes?

No, winglets don’t create contrails — and the two things people lump together are genuinely different phenomena. On a humid day you might see a faint spiral peeling off a wingtip: that’s vortex-core condensation, caused by a local drop in air pressure and temperature inside the spinning vortex (Wikipedia, Wingtip vortices). It traces the vortex; it doesn’t generate it.

The long white streaks stretching far behind a jet are engine contrails, formed from the water vapour and aerosols in engine exhaust freezing at altitude (Wikipedia, Wingtip vortices). Those come from the engines, not the wingtips. A winglet’s actual effect on that swirling air is to reduce its strength — so if anything, it makes the wingtip spiral fainter, not stronger.

Which Indian flights have winglets or Sharklets?

Both families are easy to spot at any Indian airport. IndiGo is the world’s largest operator of the Airbus A320neo family, and Sharklets are standard across all neo-family variants — so the bent tip on most of IndiGo’s current Airbus narrowbodies is a Sharklet (Wikipedia, IndiGo fleet). IndiGo was actually the first Indian airline to take a Sharklet-equipped A320, registration VT-IFH, on 28 January 2013 (Bangalore Aviation, 2013).

One honest caveat: older A320ceo aircraft may wear wingtip fences rather than Sharklets, and Sharklets were optional on the ceo. So “every IndiGo plane has a Sharklet” isn’t quite true — but most of its current Airbus narrowbodies, the neo family, do have them as standard.

On the Boeing side, Air India Express flies the 737 MAX 8, which comes with Boeing’s Advanced Technology winglets (Wikipedia, Air India Express). Air India’s own narrowbody Airbus fleet — the A320neo and A321neo — uses Sharklets as standard. So on a single day at, say, Delhi or Bengaluru you can see Sharklets, blended winglets and AT winglets within a few gates of each other. Fleet counts shift with new deliveries, so treat any exact aircraft total as a 2025 snapshot rather than a fixed figure.

None of this is something you book or pay for, by the way. A winglet is an aircraft-design feature — it doesn’t change your fare, your baggage allowance, or any rule on your ticket. If you’re choosing a flight, you’d weigh schedule, price and aircraft comfort, and you can compare those when you search flights on HappyFares. Curious about the cabins behind these wings? Our Boeing 787 vs 777 passenger experience and Airbus A350 vs Boeing 777 comparisons go deeper on the jets themselves.

Common Questions

Are winglets and Sharklets the same thing?

Aerodynamically, yes. “Winglet” is the general engineering term; “Sharklet” is Airbus’s trademarked name for its blended winglet on the A320 family, launched in 2009. Industry sources say both serve the same purpose with no significant difference (Simple Flying). The names signal the manufacturer, not a different result.

Do winglets really save fuel?

Yes. NASA puts the real-world saving from wingtip devices at roughly 4–6%, by weakening the tip vortex and reducing drag (NASA Spinoff, 2010). The gain is biggest on long cruise sectors and modest on short hops, so think of it as a range that depends heavily on flight length, not a single fixed percentage.

Does the Boeing 737 MAX have split scimitar winglets?

No. The split scimitar winglet is an Aviation Partners Boeing retrofit for the 737 Next Generation (-700/-800/-900). The 737 MAX uses Boeing’s own factory-designed Advanced Technology winglet, which Boeing says is about 1.5% more efficient than the NG’s blended winglet (Wikipedia, Wingtip device).

Do winglets stop wake turbulence so planes can fly closer together?

No. Winglets weaken wingtip vortices but don’t eliminate wake turbulence, which is the main reason ATC keeps aircraft separated (Wikipedia, Wingtip vortices). Separation rules still apply in full. They also don’t make your cabin ride smoother — that benefit is fuel and range, not comfort.

What does a raked wingtip do differently?

A raked wingtip extends and sweeps the tip back instead of curling it sharply up. Boeing and NASA testing found raked tips cut drag by as much as 5.5%, versus 3.5–4.5% for conventional winglets (Wikipedia, Wingtip device). The Boeing 787 uses them. Note these are drag figures from testing, not whole-flight fuel savings.

Who invented the winglet?

NASA aeronautical engineer Richard Whitcomb, at Langley Research Center in the 1970s — he coined the term and published his findings in 1976 (NASA Spinoff, 2010). The research was driven by the Aircraft Energy Efficiency programme after the 1973 oil crisis and inspired by the upturned tip feathers of soaring birds.

Next time you get a window seat over the wing, you’ll know what that bent tip is doing — quietly shaving drag, hour after hour. Want to pick your aircraft and seat for the next trip? Search flights on HappyFares and compare your options. While you’re at it, our guide to how takeoff works and turbulence explained are friendly reads for nervous flyers.

Disclaimer: Aircraft specifications, efficiency figures and fleet details are indicative, drawn from manufacturer and public sources, and change over time as fleets and designs evolve. Efficiency percentages are approximate and vary by aircraft, device type and route. Confirm current details with the airline or manufacturer before relying on them.