really? IGAF, if I want fuel I'm getting fuel. Simple.

Fair enough but aside from the tone did you actually ask? There is an ability for them to add fuel and "blame" it on the crew, PRF (pilot requested fuel). Nobody in the OCC gets lectured about fuel, nobody and if you get resistance then politely press the issue.

Or, you could ask for additional fuel and if resistance is encountered then do it their way with the fuel they pushed for. Then if enroute, you are not going to have enough fuel, pre-emptively divert. Done and done. Not your problem,you contentiously tried.

I think I have read on these very forums it's not your job to fix their problems, or did I misread that?

“I suggest you don’t push until we see the next metar because the winds are currently above limits”

The next observations were within limits, but if not I would have expected them to want us to wait (it was a ~30 min flight).

Except now it becomes the crew’s problem. Now we have to deal with the added headache/threat of an unnecessary divert, potentially timing out, and failing to get the people where they need to be instead of just doing it right to begin with. We should never cave to the company’s desire to cut safety margins to the bare minimum in order to maximize revenue.

Agreed, of course. I'm just not convinced that the certificated group of people who coincidentally happen to be members of the only other organized group on property are interested in maximizing revenue over safety. Some conversation might help to better understand eachothers motivations. If you're convinced that it wasn't right to begin with, don't take it and have that conversation. Irrational or unsafe argument from them? Ask for the senior and work it out, reasonably sure (with the obligatory exceptions) that it will never get that far.

United pilots can add up to 2000 lbs of fuel with a click of a button on their iPad..zero questions asked. Why can't we do this?!

Buck is right though, IF there was resistance (I've never encountered it from a Delta dispatcher they've all been awesome), just evaluate your fuel state enroute and divert if necessary.

100% yes. That should always be the expectation. If it's not met, run it up the ProStands flagpole, the two groups talk frequently with pretty good results. If it's in the immediate, not safe and you don't like it? Don't do it. Period. Full stop. I would expect that you'd have the support of everyone involved.

Cheers.

Nail. Hammer. Head...

FOM 14.1.3.1 Says you can't dispatch to an airport forecast below minimums. I remember from a regional where we did lots of short flights under an hour, this meant that we needed a current observation at the destination (METAR) above minimums on those short flights in order to depart. Longer flights were legal if the TAF was legal. I can't find that written in our convoluted manuals here though.

I've never had any pushback when asking for anything at Delta. One time ATL was going in and out of low visibility all morning while we were at the outstation. I called to have some extra fuel and the dispatcher said he was seeing flights getting in without issues and in his mind it wasn't necessary. All it took was saying that i saw his point but in my experience would prefer the extra fuel, and the argument ended there. When we called for taxi it had gone down to CAT III and we were hit with a 45 min flow time. Got an ACARS from dispatch saying "good thing you added that fuel". Same thing with changing alternates or adding an alternate when the forecast is right at the limit of needing one. At most I've gotten their reasoning for planning it that way, but never any pushback when I insisted on my request.

“Never get into an argument you’ve already won” is one of my favorite Crusty Delta Captain-isms I’ve picked up along the way.

Best story on topic that I’ve heard—possibly apocryphal, but don’t care:

Captain: We’ll need X,000 pounds more fuel due to _______ , please.
Dispatch: Can’t / won’t do that because <reasons>.
C; I understand & even concur with those reasons, however, I’ve determined that we’ll need those X,000 pounds for a safety margin.
D: Sorry, Captain—unable.
C: OK, there are two ways we can resolve this. One, do it my way & you give me the gas….
D: <wait>
D: <silence stretches>
D: <tick tick tick tick….>
D: OK, what’s the other way?
C: Well, that will be between you & whover you find to replace me—because I’m not going without the gas.
D: Amending your release now, Captain….

I think the OCC is incentivized to keep things moving bc picking up the pieces of a broken operation is incredibly difficult.

In my experience the OCC is not stopping anything until local authorities close an airport.

This is why it is so important to understand that CAs must have the confidence to make the tough decision to say NO every now and then when warranted. Figure out a diff plan. We have 17,000 pilots with diff internal risk assessment skills and actual skills. The airline screams from the clouds to stop the op for safety and will have your back on safety calls. So FFS don’t be afraid to use it!

A great friend once said, “just because a flight arrives at the gate, doesn’t mean it was done safely”.
​​​​​​​

I can tell you with certainty that Delta will dispatch and expect you to operate in excess of their recommended Xwind limits. They generally won't push you beyond the actual limits. Why they have the recommended limits I don't know. I asked them to remove them once and did not even get a answer. I did get a answer to what recommended means and was told that unless a greater safety issue is involved they should be observed. That means no operations in the fall in places like Paris for days at a time when you get heavy rains and winds 20 to 30 knots out of the south. If you point that out to dispatch they will tell you it's just a recommendation but not actually used.

They *may. I was recently delayed for hours after being stopped by the OCCAL for winds in excess of limits. This also may be a side effect of Toronto
​​​​

Like most of what’s in the book, it’s there to protect the company, not us. If you have an accident/incident where the recommended xwinds were exceeded, you can bet your a$$ that you will feel mighty lonely at the end of the table when every attorney from the FAA, NTSB, and company points at your lack of judgement.

This! I've always told my younger FO's to treat these "recomendations" as a limit. Like everything else, have a [good] reason for everything you do and be able to explain it at the table.

Good for you. It happens.

Did you read my post? The first sentence.

"I requested extra fuel for deice the other day and was told they can't because we were payload optimised."

I mean ultimately you made the decision to take payload over fuel. And it worked out fine. You really weren't denied extra fuel. They were just making you aware of the trade offs.

not trying to discount notenuf’s experience because I wasn’t there, but this is exactly how it’s gone for me every time. dispatch has never said “we can’t do that because of payload,” but they have said “we can’t do that without bumping up against payload numbers.”

it’s always been my call, but i can see how tone can give different feelings to the captain in the situation.

This is an excellent point but I did alter my SOP to accommodate not getting extra fuel. In my judgement I could do this safely with extra effort while waiting stationary. It was not the fuel but the added complexity not having it added, which is why I made the decision I did. The initial reaction was no and the excuse was provided after an additional discusion of payload optimized. The flat out no and then tone was the indicator of how further discussion would play out. My point is to show that there are situations where dispatch tries to get thier way and you as PIC have to choose to confront or reevaluate your ability to operate safely perhaps with extra effort or accepting a delay.

This is only speculation because the discussion didn't go any further but I think he had already run the numbers knowing it was close and was pleased with himself and his ability to tell someone there no need to bump pax prior to our discussion. He may have had to go back to load planning and say ...um, oops. I think this may have allowed him to save face or avoid supervisor interaction but again I don't know. It all worked out fine so maybe this is how Delta wants it done, shut engines down each time you come to a stop waiting for deice? We had min fuel for T/O by 200lbs and we never had to declare min fuel so win/win, right? We saved gas and filled the jet.

It would suck to be in a deposition or investigation interview and be asked “If you thought you would be tight on fuel, Why didn’t you request more?” and only be able to respond that you felt the dispatcher’s tone implied that such a request would be denied. In situations like these, it is better to get the rejection on a recorded line or ACARS.

If the FAA wants to talk to you about a low fuel situation, you didn't mess up on the preflight, you mismanaged the actual flight. There is already plenty of padding in minimum takeoff fuel. A payload-optimized minimum takeoff fuel amount generally gives you 65 minutes of fuel. It really isn't hard to monitor the fuel flow on a long flight and come up with a plan B if the actual fuel burn isn't matching the planned fuel burn.

This. They probably aren't going to care if you asked for more fuel or not. They're going to ask you why you ran out instead of diverting.

The issue is not really about what type of issue would trigger an investigation, but rather whether this situation could be brought up during an investigation. If an adversarial party (attorney, government, employer, etc.) is trying to find something negative about a captain's judgement, for example, and they discover that he or she had a "bad feeling" about fuel but failed to follow up on it before takeoff, they can use that to make a negative inference about the captain's judgement. This is just a matter of crossing Ts and dotting Is. My point is that we shouldn't rely on our opinions about other people's feelings when it is much more prudent to get a direct "yes" or "no" answer to a question we want to ask.

I would point to the min fuel for T/O number and say we had an extra 200 lbs. Or, I would have gone through that whole ground circus to taxi back for fuel if I didn't have min fuel for T/O. I had a plan to conserve fuel on the ground before T/O and it worked. If anyting I should be applauded for my excellent execution under less than ideal circumstances. I'll pin that on next to all my other Delta recognition medals. ;)

No wonder we got new jackets the old one is tearing due to thier weight. :)

So your plan was so tight on fuel you considered shutting down during taxi to preserve ?

Nothing wrong with that. As long as you take off with the minimum required fuel, the FAA isn't going to have a problem with it. Putting yourself into a fuel emergency in flight has nothing to do with how much you took off with, only your in flight monitoring and decision making.

Happens all the time.

Interesting, I’ve been doing this for a decent amount of time and I’ve never had to do that. If I’m so fuel critical that I need to shut down there’s something else that needs to be done.

Not saying fuel critical happens all the time, but shutting one (or both) down due to delays (EDCT, long lines, deice, getting off the (up)ramp in DEN, other ATC delays,etc) is not uncommon. I've been #37 for departure from JFK. Also had Deice go crazy slow. Sometimes mitigation is needed.

It kind of depends on the base you’re in. I was NYC based early in my career and fuel management was a weekly occurrence. Shutting down engines to maintain min takeoff fuel, slowing down in cruise if you know they are holding arrivals ahead, and declaring minimum fuel. Then I got to Delta and realized lots of their bases aren’t very busy/have more efficient ground ops so pilots rarely run up against fuel limits.

If we get a long delay after taxiing out, I'm not going to pointlessly burn fuel. Might want/need it later.

Have you never been number 30+ in line for takeoff? I guess you could just go back to the gate and call in fatigued, that is something else that could be done.

Are you DTW based and stay out of ATL? I tend to do my best to avoid ATL, but when I do get stuck down there, I find myself planned with much tighter fuels and taking off much closer to min fuel than I do woth DTW flying. I almost never get wheels up times in DTW, but its nearly an every leg experience down there. The few times I've had to shut one or both down was into/out of ATL.

Read the comment I was making towards Notenuf, I’ve shut down plenty of times as needed. His point was he was up against some form of payload optimizer pushback from dispatch when he wanted more fuel. He went along with their plan and it was tight enough that he had to shutdown to conserve fuel. Mind boggling to me that we have folks doing that, bump whatever bags or people you need to make the flight work, I’m not going to put myself into a corner that I’m fuel critical and introducing a ton more threats all because we couldn’t add a few hundred extra pounds of gas on. How many cycles are we burning on engines an APU’s cause of this? Big risk having to run the APU in the deice bay and it soaking into the intake etc etc.

DTW based but at a prior carrier I was based in ATL, so I’ve seen the drill. We’re both 717A’s so you’ll understand my numbers… it’s very rare I’m using a planned landing fuel of less than about 6.3 or 6.4.

No, I did shut down waiting in line for deice. Back in the day story... The M88 was always threading the needle between min fuel for T/O, and MLW, and WDR performance numbers on relatively short runways. Thank god for dial-a-flap. When you started the second engine often determined if you were going back to the gate for fuel. (or how hard you stopped when you got to "position and hold" on LGA runway 4 ;) IYKYK)