PAXBoy, your fuel shortage story sounds very dubious to me. A 744 full of fuel, even without freight and pax would exceed the max landing weight for a short hop with from Upington to Cape Town. I would think also with an elevation of 850m, the possibility of tech stopping on the way to London would quite possibly be payload restricted, especially in the Summer. I do agree that it is absurd that CC hours could ever be more limiting than that of Flight Deck.