Originally Posted by
Piltdown Man
The management can try to send an aircraft off without enough fuel to reach its destination, hoping that favourable winds will enable the flight to be completed.
Rubbish. Fuel requirements are defined by regulations.
"Pressured into flying with minimum fuel"?
Depends upon the POV of the person making the comment. Do we fly with minimum fuel? Yes, tens of thousands of flights a day. Is minimum fuel dangerous? Uh no, it's the minimum.
It's when fuel above minimum is desired that the divert
opinions start.
Is minimum fuel dangerous? No.
Is diverting dangerous? No.
Are pilots being 'pressured' to carry minimum fuel?
Depends upon your opinion re: fuel loads. The answers you get will be mostly based on opinion and different carriers have different cultures. At my carrier I'd say the answer is no but some coworkers strongly disagree.
How much are airlines reducing fuel loads? As much as possible. It costs roughly 3%, per hour, to carry any additional gas. The 3000kg 'comfort' fuel costs about $250 to carry on a 5 hr flight. That is a significant percentage of any net profit expected.
"The article is due to appear tomorrow." Well, if you want to do a professional, well researched, opinion or fact based article on this subject you don't have enough time. And IMO random sampling of opinions here isn't enough research to accurately cover the subject.
You need to understand the regulations, talk with enforcement officials, talk with operations officials, flight management, crewmembers, research statistics, and then write your article. "Tomorrow" is too soon.