Never thought I’d see the day, but I have to agree 110% with 411 on this one. Once I’ve signed the tech log, it’s my aeroplane, my fuel in tanks, my licence – not necessarily in that order.
My company has a ‘carry only min fuel’ policy and (unlike some) I’m quite happy to abide by that, ‘coz it’s their train set – I just get to play with it. But, when I reach that magic figure of min divert fuel, (a figure I calculate AND BRIEF exactly on every approach), they have to understand that I’m out of there and on my way to the diversion field. End of story – and no commercial considerations even vaguely figure in my calculations. (As someone has already mentioned, for Heathrow, there’s a long-standing AIC which clearly states that ‘no delay’ translates to ‘not more than 20 minutes delay’, so anyone who approaches Heathrow without at least that up his sleeve has rocks in his head.)
I suspect that the original poster might have got a slightly garbled version of events – perhaps the pilot really meant that he had no go around capability without infringing his final reserve and he was landing in good WX at a destination with two separate runways, which is quite legal. However, if the pilot concerned really did put himself in the situation exactly as painted in the original post AND he hadn’t declared a full (note: ‘full’, not ‘fuel’) emergency some 25 minutes or more earlier, he might be the darling of his airline’s Commercial Department for pressing on, but he should have had a very serious ‘tea and bikkies’ with his Chief Pilot the very next morning.
The question no one has asked is begging to be asked – if the situation was exactly as described in the original post, what in the hell was the FO doing not screaming blue bloody murder to anyone who would listen?