Pinkman
I started my comments with
When I sold fuel, among other airport services,
ie I am fairly aware of the quality issues and system in so far as I was the accountable manager.
My point was a response to the statement that defuelled fuel could go back into an aircraft of the same company, but no-one else's.
I don't get that; there can be no differentiation on safety grounds, although I can see a commercial desire not to throw away paid-for fuel.
We did not differentiate; IF we had a tanker(s) available and were able to defuel at all, we would put it into the tanker (s), subject it to stringent contamination and specification checks, and eventually put it back into main storage, where it would re-enter the quality control system. The tankers would go back into use for normal deliveries, and be checked in the usual way. We would credit the airline concerned, minus the whole cost of this laborious operation, which usually meant that he paid us rather than the other way round.
As I said, if the fuel failed the quality checks we would not reload it into any aircraft, company or otherwise, or return it to the supplier, instead using it for fire practice, running the fire trucks, or heating.
It's the bit about "It's OK to reload defuelled fuel into the same company's aircraft but no-one else's", that I don't like. Not in my book, it's not.
PS I know Tristar 500 mentioned decontamination checks; it was Exeng's earlier post I quoted and responded to. But even with such checks, the problems of storing that fuel until called for are huge; will the airline hire in replacement vehicles while 2 or 3 are full of "their" fuel? Only very big airports/fuel depots have large fleets of into-plane fuelling tankers. Tanker storage is subject to the same QA, Fire, Environmental and H&S controls as the main storage, and you can only store in a tanker for a short time.