M.Mouse:-
'If the 757 was in the hold for LHR he had several places to land apart from LHR depending on which hold he was in.'
The Speedbird B757 called up "5 minutes to a fuel emergency" because he had insufficient fuel to divert having committed himself to landing with (not less than) final reserve. Thus all alternates were no longer within reach. This was several years ago and presumably the BA fuel policy allowed landing with final reserve fuel only.
The signifigance of this being that the BA 757 thus had to wait for the airport to be available and hope that there was not a further deterioration in the situation to compound his problems.
How much more comfortable to have the extra fuel and hang the small cost of carrying it.
[This message has been edited by Caractacus (edited 09 May 2001).]