PENKO - thanks for asking! I WAS hoping we could generate some serious attention on this thread to how we feel planning should happen. My personal view is that PLOGS should change now to show both contingency AND an extra item - 'holding fuel' (based on statistics if desired and zero if appropriate) and CLEARLY annotated so crews can identify the premise on which the PLOG has been constructed. I feel any apparent 'blurring' of holding into contingency will only mask the facts.
Regarding your 'how many times.....' question, I would like all those who are vociferous about company 'pressures' restricting their fuel choice to tell us all how many times they have landed BELOW that figure and how many times they have had to declare either a MAYDAY or PAN for fuel ie how many times have they ACTUALLY not had 'enough'?