So far this this winter, we have had
1. Jets autolanding below ILS minimas
2. Jets landing below NPA minima (I presume)
3. Jets diverting to non company airports when a fairly common (if irregular) winter weather phenomenon occurs
All with no fuel for other options.
How is this worlds best practice?
Some aspects as to the nature of that phenomenon is quite well known. i.e its onset, severity and duration can be quite hard to predict.
We as a pilot group in this age are ever more constrained by rules and manuals that are only getting fatter and fatter.
Personal judgement and discretion is slowly becoming a thing of the past as newer guys are coming through are only shown/taught to play by the manual. Fuel load is becoming more and more surreptitiously limited by payload through company policy.
Time to take a step back guys before something gets bent.
Just because a manual or a rule book says it might be OK, we need to ask ourselves more and more, just as much as Teresa Green and his mates would have done in the past "**** the forecast, is my fuel load a prudent one?"
Dont leave it to BOM, a company manual or a CASA reg to keep you out of trouble. The guys that write that stuff have different drivers and KPI's which are often at direct odds with our own aims (Not talking about BOM here).