Originally Posted by
eckhard
Yes, LAX is well within reach with less than full fuel (even if at MTOW) but you could not do this at MZFW. If for some reason you did load the plane up to MZFW (approx 181T), then you could only take 66-69T of fuel, depending on your airline’s MTOW option. This is still enough to fly for about 12 hours, plus reserves.
This chestnut comes up fairly regularly on PPRuNe. Not just the 787, but many other types will end up over MTOW if you add full tanks to MZFW.
If they did load “too much fuel”, then they may have had to reduce the payload.
Defuelling is always a PITA.
Any fuel offloaded needs to be quarantined in a dedicated bowser (the fuel company doesn't know what horrors are lurking in the aircraft's tanks) and if re-used can only be supplied to the same airline. Far easier just to take the hit and offload pax or freight.