Fuel over destination
Thanks to you all. These are the the inputs I was looking for and it seems that most outfits are about the same as mine.
Now I'm going to invite opinions instead of policies/SOPs and I know things can get a little fractious at that point!
Maybe it's my age (54) but I find myself getting increasingly uneasy with FOD (fuel over destination) numbers on our flight plans. I had a flap jam (A320) some time ago. Not a very complex abnormal compared to some on the Airbus but it took about 20 minutes before we were both comfortable to land. Talked to to dispatch, maintenance,pax and cabin crew. F/O and I came up with different numbers at first so did the math again and came up with the same number. Took our time as we are always urged to do.
We were tankering 2 tons so fuel wasn't a factor but it did cause me to wonder about the same failure with 45 minutes left (no alternate scenario). Some of the more complex failures might take considerably longer than our 20 minutes. Our ops manual defines a fuel emergency as landing with less than minimum required by the state (30 mins) and this calls for another abnormal checklist during what could be a very busy time.
I think Singapore has it right. 60 minutes over destination. 30 minutes to handle an emergency and 30 minutes of what I like to consider as "unuseable fuel".
This would require another 15 minutes to be carried on our "skinniest" flights which is about 600k on a 320. We are told that it costs 3% to carry this which is 18kg. At roughly 2 dollars a kilo that's about 40 bucks. And I should add that the majority of our flights are carrying 1 hour or more FOD due to having an alternate or other factors so this would apply to a minority. So the economic argument is a bit weak in my opinion.
I realize that this subject has been beaten to death but I wonder how others feel.