To always carry another 30 minutes of fuel around is commercial madness, it is surely better to suffer the odd (rare) fuel diversion than to burn fuel carrying the stuff around?"
Really ? How much does it really cost to carry that extra 30 mins of fuel compared to the odd (rare) diversion. Our quotes are aprox. 50 kilo's extra burn per extra 1000 K carried per hour. 50 kilo's is around 62 litre's, last I heard Jet A1 was around 15p per litre, ( don't know the latest figure though ). So, total cost for carrying an extra ton per hour = £9.30. Our average flight is about 1 hour 30 mins so aprox. £14 per flight.
Now this may not sound allot but to be fair you have to multiply by the total flights per year - for me at the most = 450. Total cost per year = Aprox. £6300
Anyone care to work out how much a divert cost ? It's not just the extra financial cost of going to another airport and either doing an extra flight to final destination or coaching pax. from one to another, it's also the delay it incurs and the damage to customer relations - particularly when the competition has got in because they can hold at destination. The problem is the accountants can not easily put a price on that, unlike adding up the cost of carrying fuel.
I may be wrong but I'll stick with my 'commercial madness' and do what I always do - take at least an extra 20 mins fuel if I can get it on, it keeps me young if nothing else.
