Originally Posted by
Kennytheking
Having read the new fuel policy I see it as a logical evolution. The operator I work for has been using statistical analysis for fuel planning for a while now and it works quite well. Not all airports are the same and a simple 30 min + 5% is not necessarily appropriate.
I am free to take as much extra fuel as I feel is justified but TBH I hardly ever find the need for it as their fuel planning is pretty good. 2 years data collection represents over 700 flight for a daily flight which is a far better sample than my 10 flight that I might do in the same timeframe, so chances are they will make a pretty good decision.
The article references airlines, but I assumed this will be covered under Part-CAT, so applicable to both scheduled and ad hoc commercial air transport. Ad hoc transport already has significant human resource issues that would make reliable statistical analysis difficult for the majority of operations as individual entities - compounded by very few routes being “regular” and significantly mixed fleets. Whilst the Vistajets and NetJets are the common visible representation of the charter industry due to their fleet sizes and common livery, the European non-scheduled fleet equals that of scheduled operators in terms of tails. The vast majority of operators having under ten aircraft, with a surprisingly large number of operators having under six. It is a very fragmented market. This could be resolved by mandating greater collaboration within the various associations i.e. NBAA/EBAA with respect to sharing data. This could also be facilitated in FDM whereby the duopoly of third-party analysis services could provide anonymous data for airport pairs and fuel burn.
Like you, I agree that with the right motivation, this is an sensible evolution, and industry collaboration could exponentially increase the fidelity of the data, even amongst the scheduled Part-CAT segment. But perhaps EASA strategy addresses that - make the rule, then force the industry to come up with its own solutions?