Fuel
I haven't posted for a long time so this topic may have been beaten to death. On the other hand, things aren't getting better.
I read the stories re Ryanair and fuel and was less than surprised. At my airline it is now routine to land 10 minutes away from a "Fuel Emergency" as defined by our Flt Ops Manual. I did a 5 hour flight (A321) last night and as part of my briefing stated something like this "In the event of any delays we will declare a minimum fuel advisory". After landing I said to the F/O that I could well imagine that this statement might become part of our SOPs. Grim laughter ensued.
Our flt ops department is in the grip of what seems almost to be a religious fervour when it comes to our fuel policy and it seems to me we need a good psychologist in the picture to let them know when they are getting carried away. What would he or she say to to an official limitation of a minimum 1500 kilos over destination to reduce the possibility of aural low fuel WARNINGS rather than because that's too little fuel to be safe? We use 40k per minute for the 319/320 and 60 for the 321. So that's about 37 and 25 minutes respectively although there are other thresholds for the latter.
We are told that the company doesn't mind us landing enroute if we're concerned. This isn't much good when you get to destination and are confronted with one of the lengthy drills in the QRH which, I suppose are there for SOME reason. Everything is based on 2 years of data so, if you have a major failure then as far as the fuel poicy is concerned, 2 years after your bad day at work: it never happened.
My own personal policy is to arrive with no less than 1 hour overhead so I occassionally call dispatch and ask for 200 to 500 kilos extra depending. I don't get any resistance so far but I am supposed to submit a written explanation to a bunch of managment pilots who would have been outraged at the very idea at one time in their careers.
In my little world all jurisdictions would enforce a 1 hour minimum FOD and we could all breathe a little easier. At any rate, thanks to PPRUNE for giving me somewhere to vent my spleen.