We do have the facility to plan using decision point plans, but it only results in the contigency fuel reqt dropping from 5% of total trip to 3% of total trip (not 5% of trip from DP to dest) - on a 5 hour flight that means a saving of about 200kg - not much difference when you need a 68T MTOW aircraft and you get a 64 tonner. So we can use them, and they might make things possible in a very few cases, but not very often. Ops are quite proactive at suggesting such things in my experience.
Very diplomatic Janie, but
I am quite certain that I know what minimum means in the context of professional aviation, and Airbus_a321 obviously doesn't; you can call it a 'discussion' if you like! You are reasonable in your definitions, except we measure fuel by weight, not volume (it expands and contracts a lot with temperature).
All professional aircrew take the minimum fuel
they consider necessary for a safe flight, because it gives the minimum aircraft weight and thus the minimum fuel burn. This minimum fuel may be more than the legal/regulatory minimum, but never less!
There are quite possibly some airlines which place unreasonable pressure on their crews to take less fuel than is safe, I have never worked for one or heard of a company acting like that in the UK. I don't know about Ireland...
