Robert Mugabe, then those base/standard captains are wrong. The 5% is for unforeseen circumstances, period. Anyway, anti ice and turbulence are never going to cost you more be than your discretionary 300 kg (assuming you are in FR?).
Our definition of a contingency is: deviation from the planned operating conditions. There is no way they can argument that a flight plan on a CAVOK day should have the same planned burn as a flight plan on a grey winter's day. If you plan to fly into icing, then you have to plan for the extra burn.
Another question I like to ask any colleague flying with me who insists one a 'couple-a-hundred' extra for no apparent reason: are they happy to burn their alternate fuel in the destination hold when landing is assured? Usually they start huffing and puffing at this question but it shows their unrealistic expectations. Because not one of them would divert on a CAVOK day with landing assured...yet they do want extra fuel all the time.
And again, just to make it absolutely clear. I am no fuel cowboy. I am no hero. I will take as much fuel as necessary, which might quite easily mean an extra half an hour or 45 minutes when faced with thunderstorms, foreseeable operational difficulties or even operations to short runways on which you can't land with flap problems, just to name a few.
Last edited by PENKO; 1st Jan 2013 at 14:28.