Folks,
A little bit of (relevant) history.
Many years ago (I mustn't mentioned names to protect the guilty) a large international airline domiciled in Australia went on a purge of "surplus fuel", Captains could compare their "fly-spot" charts, a comparison of their fuel orders, with every other Captain in the fleet. Various educational publications, let's call then Flight Standing Orders, were distributed.
The boss, lets call him the Captain D.F.O. , boasted he never carrier surplus, only the MOR --minimum operating requirement, min. fuel to the rest of you.
But unlike Captain D.F.O, we didn't get to hand pick our trips. In those days, we had 4 flights a day to UK, plus other European services.
But we did solve the problem. Quite simply, over one roster period, over a northern winter, we, the line pilots, resolved to faithfully follow the boss's fine example of compliance with company policy. Can't be criticised for that, wouldn't you say.
The weather gods were quite remarkably cooperative.
Of course, the results were as funny as they were predictable, schedules were shot to sh1t, revenue hours were seriously off, and fleet fuel consumption skyrocketed --- as did passenger complaints. As (bad??) luck would have it, one flight from Singapore diverted from London twice, one 13 hour flight took over 2 days, including crew min. rest. Crew overtime earnings blew the Flight Ops. (Captain D.F.O's) budget. Didn't do his annual KPIs bonus all that much good, either, I would think?
Suddenly, the whole "surplus" fuel issue went very, very quite, and the chap who produced the "fuel savings" charts was redeployed.
Tootle Pip!!
PS: As I used to explain to my students: If I only ever took the min. fuel the law allowed, the company would go broke from delays and disruptions to schedules, if I took what I liked, the company would still go broke from excessive fuel costs and loss of capacity, our job is to get the payload offering to destination at minimum reasonable cost, and as close to schedule as we can get. Minimum risk (aka "safety") is a given. On a long range operation, it means every flight is different.
Last edited by LeadSled; 16th Nov 2017 at 13:09.