My point is that our legal reserves are not that safe at all! Ryanairs planned diversion routes were not realistic in terms of fuel, I doubt my company's are any better. Nor for that matter KLM's, BA, LH, AF or any other carrier.
My point is that our minimum plog fuel on a nice day can very quickly turn into scraping the bottem of the barrel.
ATC can cause a lot of problems and creating emergency aircraft by downgrading the fire cat from 9 to 0 in an instant when there is 1 small fire somewhere on the airport.
Brave man who waits around for emergency fuel status before diverting to another airport btw.
Which is where the problem (the alternate) will be. Not that multiple runway cavok destination. Or did you drop the alternate as it was such a nice day with multiple non crossing runways and seperate approach aids.
Sorry but when someone starts mixing statistics into plog fuel, KLM does this for instance, I start doubting. My company stopped with planning for longest SID and STAR, instead a computer determines likely arrival based on rwy configuration.
Every slack is cut from minimum plog fuel by commercial drive. Maybe its time for the authorities to increase the legal minima and thus provide a level playing field.
And soon we can add EASA ftl into the mix of minimum fuel ops and possibly inexperienced crew.
Yes all this could happen to any airline, but when pilots feel pressured regarding their fuel decision something is wrong. Fuel league tables are wrong.
Just saying that these 4 pilots are weak and can take the fuel they want is not the answer to the problem. Nor that they are lying. There is a cultural problem in FR it seems.
Last edited by 737Jock; 29th Dec 2012 at 17:06.