great point!!!!!
A couple of months ago during the winter, while jumpseating on mainline, the captain requested what amount to about an extra 1/2 hour of fuel and said something about the dispatcher being a newbie and the weather being marginal, then 2 hours later we are at destination being about 18 mins of fuel over weight, since tailwinds were stronger than predicted... over a thousand pound of fuel wasted in a holding pattern because this Captain was "over cautious".
In an instance like this I totally understand the company questioning this individuals common sense and authority...

 

Did anybody else see about a month ago where US Airways mainline pilots took out a full page ad in the USA Today about mgmt threatening CAs jobs due to fuel related issues. Not sure how much of that is USAPA propaganda and how much is the truth.

I do feel that it should be entirely up to the CA especially in instances of known delays, crappy wx, etc. Ask any aviation safety person and they'll probably be able to come up with the statistics but bottom line its always cheaper to burn some extra fuel than it is to have a fatal accident. As somebody has already stated that regs and SOPs often are written in blood.

 

Things a Pilot always wonders when in a crisis. 1)altitude i left above me 2) runway i left behind me 3)fuel i left in the truck. extra fuel is always ok when u thing u might be flying into a S!@# Storm

 

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!!

 

Well said.

Too often I have seen the term "Comfort Fuel" in place of "I really don't want to actually THINK about fuel planning."

Maybe I spent too many hours flying twins with drift down altitudes below 5000 feet. But I would rather have to divert for fuel than lose and engine and wish I could shed a few hundred pounds.

 

I think you (and the Captain) are missing the point. Did he check the release to see how much the fuel sheet said you had? This has been an issue for us here at UAL. The fuelers bring you a sheet that says that you have the correct fuel load, let's say 55.2. You look up and you see 55.0. You just paid for 200# of fuel you didn't get. I see this more frequently than I care to admit. Oh, and before you say "it's within the guage error", I NEVER saw it before we contracted our fuel out. Another brilliant decision by Glenn-two-N's.

 

I am sure every airline has issues with the tightening of the fuel belts, though those issues may vary. At my airline, I tend to have no problem going to outstations, as we are receiving almost an hour's worth of tanker fuel so as to not buy as much at the outstation. However, I do see quite a few problems when traveling to the hubs. Probably the biggest issue is that our dispatchers do not enter the altitudes we are likely to be assigned while on the arrival. I have seen a planned step climb from 350 to 370 when in reality I am on the planned arrival, being descended from 240 to 15,000. I don't pick a battle fo principle with dispatch. But I do read over every plan closely, and try to see where I know I can outperform the computer numbers. Sometimes it may mean flying slower than planned (and is there a reasonable expectation that ATC will allow the slower speed), or getting a "standard" shortcut. If I can't find a way that I am likely to beat the plan, and I don't believe that the plan takes into consideration every likely contingency (like the Philly Factor), then I will not go without my comfort fuel. That being said, I have no problem diverting. If it takes a rash of diversions to get stingy dispatchers fired, or to hurt my company's performance, then so be it. In general, though, the tight fuel plans still get me on the ground with about 1.3 times the required reserve fuel on a VFR day. It is enough for me for domestic short haul, and I have no reservations about declaring a fuel emergency if needed.