Denzel

Ok not a 121 guy here and I know there a lot of factors to consider, but standard wx to hawaii, what do guys typically have at their destination fuel wise in time? I've read part 121 about flag and supp carriers. How much of your reserve can you eat enroute? Is there a no kidding do not go below this amount over your destination? Basically if the flight goes as planned/forecast what is left onboard. Talking 2-engine part-121. I appreciate your time and any feedback.

Denzel

pokey9554

The FARs say the aircraft must carry enough fuel to:
1) Fly to and land at the airport to which it was released
2) Fly for a period of time equal to 10% of the planned flight time between the departure and destination airport.
3) After that, fly to and land at the most distant alternate airport listed in the dispatch release.
4) After that, fly for 30 minutes at holding speed at 1500 feet above the alternate

Then you have ETOPS requirements which take into account any contingencies you may require. Basically, these are worst case scenarios should you need to divert somewhere at your equal time point.

The answer to your first question is always changing. You don't want to eat into your reserves, and if properly planned and executed, you shouldn't. Reserves can be burned into. It's not the ideal situation, but you wouldn't ditch a good airplane for fear of using your reserves. To pull a random number for you, I would say you would have 80 minutes of fuel at your destination except that ETOPS rules would likely require more because of the contingency planning.

WindWalker999

The A330 usually lands in HNL with about 12000 - 15000 lbs remaining, which is right down to the letter of the regulation the last post quoted. You will be flight planned to land at your ALTERNATE airport pretty much right at your reserve fuel value plus enough to go around the pattern again once or twice, basically. Exact planned fuel at intended destination depends on the alternate (HNL-LAX will plan you over LAX with a lot more gas if your alternate is Vegas as opposed to Long Beach, for example), and occasionally on ETOPS contingency fuel requirements (usually based on having enough fuel to have a decompression at exactly the halfway point of the flight, and make it to a selected alternate airport at 10,000 feet in icing with either both engines running or one failed, whichever is worse). For perspective, in that aircraft a 45 minute reserve is 8000 lbs. You should, in theory, never touch this fuel even if you diverted. You should certainly never touch it if you land at your intended destination. The reality is that if we are diverting, in all likelihood so is everyone else so we may get deeper into that fuel than we would like depending on when we "pulled the trigger" and our position in line.

This comes to the second part of your question. That absolute value is "bingo fuel", which is a somewhat fluid and situation-based number that essentially is whatever reserve number you want to land with as PIC, plus calculated diversion fuel, plus delay fuel for however long you think it will take to actually get cleared to your alternate and hold for a landing slot etc. That can sometimes be a much higher value than the paper flight plan delay / contingency fuel number, and is where we "get paid the big bucks". If you are running lower than flight planned fuel due to bad headwinds, getting stuck at a low altitude etc it may be prudent to divert before you even start your arrival if you start to hear the holding pattern stack up in front of you. This is especially true in the Hawaiian Islands as there really are so few options (if one place is really junked out with weather, likely the other 4 airports are too).

All of that is part of what makes oceanic flying interesting, and to be honest it is usually very, very routine.