New JAR ATPL Exam - Carbon Emission Resource Management

[Jambo Buana]

We need to educate flightcrews in how to operate to greener standards.

Ask yourselves. Why in this day and age does one crew land at an airport with lets say 4.5 tons of fuel and 5 minutes behind him, another a/c from the same company, with exactly the same met/notam information lands with 2.5 tons of fuel? Lets assume that these two individual crews set off intending to land with these fuel loads and that it wasn't a freak flight planning situation. ( I say lets assume because I see it day in day out )

Can you see why the bean counters must be pulling their hair out over us pilots?

Is it time to either take away the final fuel calculation from the pilot and somehow automate it in line with the JAR requirements? After all, theres a lot of fat built into the JARs already, isn't there?

Spicy thing to suggest but its probably not a million miles away from reality!

[FlyVMO]

More training regarding calculating fuel reqirements maybe a possibility. Wouldn't want to see the decision taken out of the pilot's hands though.
While we're at it though, how about emphasizing to the traveling public the effects of taking unneccessary crap with them? I know a girl who took 8 PAIRS of shoes to visit her B/F in Paris for two weeks!!! 300 pax worth of extra stuff adds up.

[Gnirren]

Well... if you charge people money per item they check in, soon people will refrain from bringing more than handluggage anyway :-) *cough* ryanair *cough*

[conor_mc]

Ryanair..... saving the environment... ;)

[Basil]

<<Is it time to either take away the final fuel calculation from the pilot>>
In the words of a great lady "No! No! No!"
As experienced professionals will be aware, there are many reasons why extra fuel will be burnt on the same route on the same day by the same type at the same TOM. Also the pilot in command may wish to arrive with extra fuel for perceived holding or other delays - e.g. Would you really carry LGW alternate for LHR? I certainly wouldn't if I had the capacity to carry more.
Clearly on (old)HKG-LHR on a B747 in the winter we were stuffed and took minimum fuel.
In general though, minimum fuel is whatever the aircraft commander decides it is - captain's decision alone and let's keep it like that.

[BizJetJock]

>>After all, theres a lot of fat built into the JARs already, isn't there?<<
Errr....No, I think is the simplest response to that.

[Empty Cruise]

Our latest "fuelburn league table" showed inverse correlation between the on-block amount as percentage of company minimum reserves and the burn as percentage of estimated plog burn. :D

Oh, not only was that league table our latest, it was also (so far) our last.

There are a lot of situations that 600 kg. extra can get you out of, situations that accountants and financial analysts don't know anything about. Now, I don't go around telling accountants how to do their job - because i know d!ck all about it. If the accountants would extend the same courtesy to me, we would get on fine.

Jambo Buana, according to your profile, your occupation is "airline pilot" and your interest is "flight safety". If I add those two, I arrive at a complete lack of understanding of how you can think that JAR-OPS1 CMR has a lot of fat build into it and that it is time fuel tankering was taken away from the captain. If you could solve that mystery, I think some might be more favourably inclined to your proposal.

That being said, I agree with the benefits of fuel efficient operation, and I'm just as upset as anybody when I take over an aircraft with 2,5T @ a station where fuel index is 150 and previous 2 hr. sector only had 50% loadfactor. I always ask people to put down the reason why they cary extra fuel in writing - on the plog. And when weather is dandy, runways are plentiful & not NOTAMed to death, I cary just around minimum fuel. So on those days, I save the company money. On the sh!tty days, I cary a lot more, and again save the company money, this time by preventing a diversion, or diverting so early that we are @ the front of the queue to get out again.

To sum it up - I help the company by operating fuel-efficiently whenever possible. In return, no questions are asked when I cary minimum + 2T. They know I have a damn good reason to do it. That's the way it works @ our outfit, and it works a treat! :ok:

Anybody take my fuel discretion away, and I'll happily move to the RHS & fly for the rest of my career as an F/O. Or I might quit flying and become an accountant? :ouch:

Empty (and believe me - that's just a name!)

[Jambo Buana]

Common sense isn't very common anymore though! For every thinking pilot there are 5 non thinkers, you know the ones that add 600kgs everytime they go flying just in case. Can we really sustain such pilots with fuel at such a premium? I think it really is only a matter of time before one of the more adventurous airlines try this approach. I hope not because I'm a thinker too and can find fuel savings in flight plans quite easily, and conversely can spot the odd duff plan too. It really isn't that difficult to do but experience certainly helps, that is why I think crews need to be taught at an early stage in their career, and by current modern day pilots not the old Trident boys who operated in a totally different risk level environment than we do today.