Originally Posted by VTcharter

We must be very careful carrying "comfort fuel" which is far and above that required for the flight. It gets very expensive, can be aircraft limiting, and is extremely inefficient in most cases. There are certain times when carrying the legal reserve plus a level of contingency fuel would be appropriate, such as flights into high density areas known for delays, or tankering due to high fuel price variations, however carrying multiple hours of fuel above and beyond requirements is inefficient at best and wasteful at worst.

Fuel is your friend, but as with anything, there is a point of diminishing returns. There are many airports available in todays day and age for diversion if necessary. Anything can happen that is unexpected while enroute and this is where captains authority can come into play to prevent these accidents due to fuel starvation that people like to bring up. In these cases, crews should have realized that there would likely be a problem far earlier than when the engine flamed out and planned a diversion as necessary. Speak up if fuel is becoming a concern...min fuel is not a taboo call, especially if the flight planning was done accurately and followed.
The carriage of large amounts of contingency fuel should not take the place for accurate flight planning and fuel monitoring enroute. If "comfort fuel" is going to take precedence, why don't we just start topping off the tanks for every flight...because hey, even if it is forecast VFR, our destination COULD be shut down due to an accident and all airports within 500 miles MIGHT get fogged in and / or have severe thunderstorms pop up. No worry though, because we have an extra 3 hours of fuel!!