Originally Posted by
tdracer
Used to know a United Airlines pilot that flew 767s and 777s. He said that he routinely flew the 767 faster than the CI recommended (faster than 0.82) and still beat the fuel burn numbers - usually by a significant margin - and still arrived ahead of schedule.
I know that when we had EIS of the 747-8F, we discovered that the operators often flew it much slower and lower than we ever expected (29k, M 0.78 stick in my memory). We had to revise some of the FADEC s/w to better optimize fuel burn for those conditions.
If I remember correctly, fuel burn is not the only consideration. Therefore, he could have been costing the company more money despite saving fuel