Originally Posted by
Poser765
but we always do have extra fuel! The dispatchers here fuel very liberally.
If it’s over 70 degrees on a turn it’s not coming off unless we are all coming off the airplane... which brings up another point.
Do you want me to leave the apu on during a quick turn with a crew swap? I will, but your butt needs to make its presence known. If I’m ready to take my bags off and you aren’t at the bottom of the jet bridge I’m turning off the apu. I’m not going on a quest to find you.
For the most part, I'm with you. I've had a few times where the dispatchers have been a little optimistic with taxi fuel and then give no hold fuel and then SEA center decides to make you do S turns across the state of Oregon at Mach 0.77 at FL240. Or going LAX-SFO and you get a lengthy wheels up time that you discover after you push and you can't shut down. I usually treat that extra taxi gas as a bit more contingency or hold fuel, but I've had times where I'm already below planned when the taxi ends up longer than planned (and yes, I single engine taxi every flight whenever possible).
I'm with you on leaving the APU running on turns. I also have zero problem firing it up if the airplane hasn't been fueled yet. I know that starting 50 lbs lower on fuel won't change what the fueler brings the airplane up to, so I might as well use it for passenger comfort.
If there's ground power at the gate, I'll glance up the jet bridge to see if anyone on the other crew is there before turning off the APU. If there's no ground power, I will go looking in the gate area for the other crew before we're done deplaning to see if anyone is there and ask one of them to come down so I can leave it on and set them up for success. Got to set up the next guy for success.
