I was there for the first part of his exchange with ATC. My memory is vague but he was given an EAT some 45 minutes or so down the line and he said he could not hold for that long. I don't recall him saying that he could not hold at all, although that info may have come out after we left the frequency.
ATC immediately climbed into him saying that the ONLY way they could help him was if he declared an emergency. This guy was battling with english and ATC was not the friendliest out(I know....lots of pressure, etc). Not sure what transpired after that other than the fact that he was on APP freq shortly after us with ATC demanding to know if he needed 12 straight in or if he could still fly 80 track miles.
As for the fuel policy, seems pretty simple to me. Hold for as long as you can then divert or commit. If committing and you still get further delays declare an emergency and land. I stand to be corrected but I doubt any of our crew has ever been been disciplined or punished for declaring an emergency due to low fuel when operating to the book?
Personally, I like statcon. I means the company is using their wealth of data of when there is likely to be issues vs my severely limited hit & miss experiences of a bit of holding at midnight.
Last edited by Kennytheking; 13th Aug 2012 at 16:40.