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.
What do you cover with your approach and what level of risk are you willing to take ?
If you agree to """routinely""" burn into your final reserve, then ok, go ahead.
However, if you consider that final reserve is something that should never be touched, ever, then your reasoning could be different.
You want the fuel runout event to be less likely than 1/1 billion flight hours
Go around is something that happens approximately once in every 100 to 1000 flight hours. So you must have at least 3 go arounds planned for your flight (and up to 4 or even 4.5). For a standard A320, that gives you between 2.1T and 3.1T. 2T is the legal minimum fuel that we usually have given the distance of alternate airfields for major cities in Europe. 3T is 1T extra, which is a reasonable amount of fuel that is usually taken for reasonably bad conditions. This very simple calculation worked out quite well.
Going below this you're not covered for anything more with the right level of safety.
Two go arounds in the same flight (clear skies), or three go arounds in the same flight (bad wheather) is really bad luck and does not happen everyday, but if you aim for a 1/1 billion flight hours level of safety, you absolutely need to cover this case.