RE: Contingency Fuel
A question for long haul Airbus pilots:
While I make no claims to be an expert on ETOPS fuel reserves, I do know that there is an ETOPS fuel requirement to carry sufficient fuel for high fuel burn situations, such as an enroute pressurization failure necessitating a descent to a breathable altitude. Given this, and the availability of alternate airports (the flight would have passed close to or over the Cape Verde Islands and Tenerife) along the planned route for a tech stop, my question is whether these factors more or less ensure that there was sufficient fuel for a weather deviation. In other words, it seems to me that the failure to make a course deviation was not likely caused by fuel issues. It seems to me there would have been enough fuel to deviate and still cope with a subsequent problem since Cape Verde was approximately 750 nm away. I don't have the tech data to work through the math myself.
Or, am I missing something here?