LYKA - this thread is going the way of its previous 7 or 8 re-incarnations, and I'm sure a thorough search will locate them all.
One can indeed play semantics with this, and management in some airlines are particularly skilled at this.
To me, and most of my colleagues who have been operating into the London TMA for a few years, the AIC 'advises' that you really SHOULD carry AT LEAST 20 mins holding fuel during 'rush hour'. It is not realistic to read it any other way. In fact I believe in one of the previous fuel threads it was said that the original 'Pink' did in fact have those very words, but certain airlines 'requested' a change in the wording to its current form.
The CAA SOC on Fuel Policies of 2000 highlighted this and said "it has again become apparent that too many aeroplanes continued to arrive in the vicinity of their planned destination with little more than Alternate and Final Reserve fuel remaining."
It is also not generally known that the same SOC advised that Captains should adjust TRIP FUEL to include expected holding fuel. The BA system still does not do that, but allows, as 'Overstress' posts, increased 'contingency fuel' at peak times.
I'm fairly sure we all really know what it all means, despite pussy-footing around with words. Anyone who can but does NOT plan for such, and arrives short, has only themselves to blame. As PPR, however, I am NOT leaping to any judgement about this particular event as we do not (and probably never will) know the facts.