My German language skills are zero and therefore the main contents of the report are lost on me and no doubt the vast majority of pilots worldwide. However, reading the comments from Airbus, it seems that the crew were trying to wriggle out of their incompetence by blaming some of the technology and wording in some of the FCOM's and manuals.
Whilst Airbus have covered their backsides (rightfully so) by pointing out that the FMC does not give an accurate fuel prediction when flying with landing gear extended, even though the bit about not being accurate for vertical profiles is a bit confusing, how come the most basic aspects of airmanship were disregarded by this crew? Apparently they were even discussing "phantom fuel" at a stage of the flight when they still had plenty of en-route alternates they could have diverted into!
I don't think there is one experienced Airbus or Boeing pilot out there that doesn't understand the fact that flying with an appendage extended into the breeze will cause increased drag and the associated increase in fuel consumption. Then again, I'm wrong as the crew of the accident flight have proved! As far as I'm aware, we are all taught to ignore the fuel predictions on the FMC for abnormal flight conditions, particularly so when landing gear or flaps are not fully retracted. It is usually drummed home at an early stage of training is it not?
I will wait another seven years for the translation to prove to me that the investigators have tried to pass some of the blame for the gross incompetence of this crew onto the equipment manufacturers and the fact that, despite the bleedin' obvious, they couldn't figure out that they were not going to make it to their destination with their company minimum reserves of fuel. To ignore basic cues such as almost twice the normal fuel consumption and fuel remaining over waypoints shows that you aren't going to make it to your planned destination, never mind the basic airmanship of "we only loaded enough fuel assuming normal flight parameters but now we have the landing gear extended but we'll carry on anyway... duh!", shows gross incompetence.
How can anone justify seven years to release a report where the crew are alive, uninjured and the aircraft and all its monitoring and recording systems survived intact? At least we can take some comfort that there is probaby very little to be learnt from this accident apart from the fact that anyone can screw up big time if they are poorly trained, lazy in thinking and have an arrogance that defies logic!