1. Flight plans for most airlines are prepared by complex software packages/providers (LIDO in our case) that take into account amongst other things the likely departure, arrival, routings, flight levels, flight time, performance degradation factor for the individual aircraft, temperatures and winds. As a general rule of thumb if you know that your average burn per hour for the aircraft type is say 6T an hour then this multiplied by your flight time will give you a base line. Add on the alternate fuel plus the 30mins extra required by law and you won't be far off. We are not required to try and recalculate the flight plan calculated fuel. Once we are onboard and have programmed the flight management computers I am yet to see a flight plan set of fuel figures that doesn't agree to the paper versions.
2. Flight plans are printed at the start of the day. They also come via modem to our electronic flight bag (EFB - tablet computer) and to our ipads. It is rare for them to change even on multi sector days as most of the sectors you fly have designated routes between them to facilitate ATC mainly. When flight plans do change it is usually due to airspace closing for military or weather reasons or the company refiles us to avoid a lengthy slot delay. The decision to refile will (if time available) usually be communicated via ACARS in flight so that the captain is aware and can sometimes have some input if various options are available. The new plans can be sent via ACARS and usually a backup set will be handed to us on arrival by our handling agent. The EFB and ipads will sync with the new plans.
3. A lot of airports have digital ATIS so if your aircraft is suitably equipped then you can receive it at any time that you have a relevant comms link. We tend to get it before we leave for both destination and departure and then at a suitable time in the cruise put it into auto update mode to avoid any surprise late changes. If there is no digital ATIS then its not the end of the world. We would have received metars and reviewed the TAFS so have a good idea of the likely runway and given our direction of flight the arrival to be flown. Some airports have strict rules driven by things such as noise abatement which dictate the runway combinations for the time of day/week day etc. Its all in our notes either in the form of notams, company notams or from the countries AIP which LIDO take the relevant bits out of and paste into their airport pages for us.
4. Sometimes we know and sometimes we only get advised after landing. Some airports (Rome for example) have a fixed taxi routing after landing where you continue without stopping after vacating the runway to a designated check point and only then contact the ground controller who will give you onwards. Other airports have auto handoffs to a ground controller so that the tower frequency is kept quiet. At others we have to stop or slow down as its a 50/50 as to which way we need to turn and often frequencies are congested and we can't get a word in.
5. All of the above. Can send an ACARS as well and give them a headsup that we may need an engineer on arrival or a deferral number to return to base. Some destinations won't be suitable for taking certain aircraft defects into (landing performance/lack of engineering as just two examples) and a decision may be taken back at base for you to divert into somewhere else to have the problem sorted. Its a pain for the passengers hoping to get to their destination but it ensures that you don't ground an aircraft for a potentially extended period of time at a potentially rarely used outstation.
6. True. CPDLC will soon be the preferred means for most. FANS is being used in Europe by many operators (including my own) whilst our long haul aircraft have the all singing and dancing CPDLC.