Originally Posted by
Senior Skipper
Ryguy,
Awesome shots! Pardon me if the questions are silly, but why was it important to get there first? Why did ATC want you to pass everybody?
How long were you at .89, and how did it impact your arrival fuel prediction?
It was more about getting past the slower guys so we didn't get stuck behind them when we got close. None of us were close to overtime this month so it was nice to get to the hotel. ATC requested us to get by them so they could climb. If you notice, that 340 was a couple thousand feet below and wanted to get further up. He had been held down by SQ1 who was haulin' butt and passed us. Only thing to do at that point to get him and the others (couple MD-11's and another 'bus) a climb in a reasonable period was for us to blow past as well. Otherwise we would slowly go by over a period of a few hours and hold those guys a few thousand below where they needed to be. We had a printout of everyone filed on that route so we knew it would be hard to jockey for altitudes etc. We put on a few extra tons of gas for that purpose.