<...were the words I heard uttered by the Heathrow Director (120.4) the other morning when an aircraft, when told that the hold at BIG was 20mins, said, "I don't have fuel for that".... ATC then asked, "are you declaring an emergency" .>>
Well it wouldn't have been on 120.4 because that's the Final Director frequency... However, it probably did occur as it's becoming very common nowadays. It certainly happened yesterday with several a/c when we suddenly went low vis for about 20 minutes! One short-haul guy said "If we go around on this approach we'll be declaring an emergency". Another, inbound from another UK airport only 40 mins away, told me in the BNN hold "Be advised that we are committed to land at Heathrow Airport". Err.. what? None of us really understood what he meant, given that Luton was half the flying time away..
If someone says "we can only hold for five more minutes" and we're in a steady EAT situation there's not much we can do about it other than maybe bring you off the hold a minute or two early and wind you round the approach, but this may not be possible.
It dawned on me yesterday that never once can I recall an American registered airline saying they were short of fuel. They just go round and round the hold until it's time for an approach and that's it.. I suppose I have to say, thinking about it, that we never get problems with continental Europe airlines - Lufthansa, KLM, SAS, Air France, Alitalia, etc, etc. Hey it's just the British airlines who can't plan their fuel properly!!!!!