Bad airmanship would be sitting in a hold and burning off all your fuel without a plan and knowing when to divert. Running out of fuel would be a rather more stupid thing to do don't ye think.
Depends when the call was made to ATC about the necessity to divert does it not? I think if you read my previous post anotherthing, it is what I said.
If the crew made a late call to MAN about the fuel state then I couldn't agree more Route Papa
Two times around the hold is what Route Papa 45 said. In a hold that is 8 minutes flight time generally. The crew are only doing the sensible thing and letting ATC know that they will probably have to divert in 8 minutes. How much time do you need to let ATC know?
The crew probably would have about 1 hr to 1 hr 20 min of fuel and 8 min would make about 10% of total fuel so the crew did have a bit to spare.
20 min of spare fuel on a 737 or A320, which I am assuming was the BA aircraft in question. Would be equivalent to about 1/2 a tonne or just over of extra fuel. It could be as much as 800kg. That is a fairly sizeable amount of fuel to be carrying around if the crew didn't expect delays and without any requirement to carry that amount. Carrying fuel for no purpose costs money pure and simple. Some companies make pilots answer for this, some don’t. That could possibly be for another thread about culture for safety and fuel decisions.
There could have been a combination of reasons for slightly lower fuel than the usual at arrival into MAN. A long time at the holding point waiting for departure from LHR for example and other things such as an early than expected descent, poor routings and unfavourable winds etc. The crew might have wanted more fuel than needed for the diversion due to extra traffic at alternates due LPL runway closure. CarltonBrowne the FO had rightly mentioned about no priority for diverting traffic which would have been a consideration.
I am not trying to say either party was right or wrong. I am just trying to give another opinion for what might have been going on in this situation.
