Fuel over destination

[Mulligan]

I'd like to do an informal survey of how much fuel different outfits are carrying these days. My company recently introduced a new fuel policy and I find I am ordering extra more often than I did under the old policy. Maybe I'm just getting older.
I fly Airbus narrowbodies and under the new policy it's not unusual to arrive at destination pretty close to state-mandated minimum fuel. The policy was just revised to a minimum of 1500k so as to avoid the low fuel warning activating on approach (not, apparently, because you are actually LOW on fuel!)
On a recent 5 hour leg we were planned to arrive with 1.7 and no alternate (weather was excellent). I was uncomfortabe and ordered an extra 400k (about 10 mins). No weather deviations and we were given flt plan altitudes. We arrived with 1.7. Had we not ordered the 400 extra it would have been 1.3 or about .2 over mandatory.
How does this compare to other companies?

[BOAC]

Were the flight time/weights as per plan? If so (and assuming you had the speedbrakes in and the gear up), the a/c would be burning more than 'spec' and your company needs to adjust the flight plan fuel index they use for computing burn. It is a simple change done via your plan providers. HEALTH WARNING: The accountants will not like it.

[Mulligan]

I should have mentioned that we were actually about 500k lighter than flight plan. All parameters supported the flight plan numbers with the exception that we were told to descend from 390 to 360 about an hour from destination. This would not have accounted for an extra .4 burn.
My own observations are not "scientific" but a general sense that the margins are thinner under the new policy and I'm curious as to what is done at other companies.

[BOAC]

There is something seriously adrift there - it isn't '400kg more' is it - you must also have burnt your 'contingency' as well? That I assume would be around 5-600kg - ?guess? You are looking at an error of something around 10%? I'd really be concerned! The 'early' descent to 360 would be almost insignificant. One way to waste fuel in flight, of course, is excessive use of v/s on the descent, early config., mis-judged descent point amongst others.

I don't see that in essence this has anything to do with 'new policies' really. I suggest you keep on ordering that extra until you get this sorted out.

[Mulligan]

Mandatory minimum was 1.1
Cont was .6
I did indeed file a report to Flt ops and perhaps they will "tweak" things for this particular leg. Overall though the margins "seem" thinner and hence my reason for starting the thread . What's normal at other outfits?

[BOAC]

Difficult I think to quantify things over here in Europe - we probably use different terms. What, for example is "state-mandated minimum fuel." - mostly we use (in UK) 'CMR' (Company Minimum Reserve) which gives diversion fuel (if req'd) plus 'Reserve' fuel which is an absolute min in tanks at landing. I guess your "mandatory" is the latter? For no div required, and a min of 1500kg (for QRH reasons). I would have thought things were fine (as 'fine' as we will see for a while, anyway).

Leaving aside what appears to be a rogue aircraft or whatever, I can't quite understand exactly the issues you are looking at, eg what was the 'old' policy and what is the 'new'? Is it the introduction of no alternate? Has 'contingency' been trimmed? Is it the 'min 1500kg'?

The 'tweaking' you describe should not be for that 'leg', but, from what you have described, for the airframe or even the planning programme itself. In Astraeus we found a significant bug in the Jepp 737 ETOPS fuel programme which took a while to get sorted (if, indeed, it has been!).

[Mulligan]

I'm going to perhaps excessive lengths for the sake of anonymity. For the sake of the discussion our "state mandated min" would equal your CMR. Diversion plus reserve. No alternate flights were in place before the new policy and still are.
There may be an issue with rounding. IE: Cont. for instance might be 601k or 699k. It could be that, in either case the figure is rounded down. I'm trying to find out more on this. Perhaps our old policy used a blunter instrument for calculations and all rounding was done up.
Do you find yourself occassionally ordering more fuel or is planned fuel always satisfactory?

[framer]

I turned up at my destination withan hour of fuel(3 ton) a had flight control problems which necessitated a go round and some checklists etc etc, it has changed my view on 'fuel over destination' a bit because the situation was high pressure enough without a shorter period of time to get our ducks in a row.
Talking in minutes instead of weight will mean all different types can understand each other.
I like to arrive overhead with an hour of gas in the tanks on a nice day.
Thats just me and I bet some will say thats too much and others will say it's not enough. Will be interesting to hear what others have to say.
Regards, Framer.

[Quality Time]

I'm afraid that 1700kg seems to me a ridiculously small amount to plan to arrive anywhere with - lovely weather or not.

It appears from previous threads that my normal 2.7 - 3.0 tons for arrival is deemed excessive by some on here.(B737) Strange because I learned my fuel habits from very experienced charter pilots at some of the UK's well respected outfits.

Our plans usually tanker outbound and minimum or close to minimum will get us home with the above figure.

[Mulligan]

Thanks for the input. Looks like my outfit is on the low side so far. 1.5 would translate to about 35-40 minutes on a 319/320.
An F/O I was flying with the other day said Airbus SOPS mandate 3.0 over destination. 1.5 reserve plus 1.5 to do the longest checklist in the QRH. Some of them are very long indeed and it's easy for two pilots to come up with two different speeds/flap settings/runway length increments etc. With typical fuel remaining it could be a matter of picking the most conservative (and possibly wrong) data.

[BOAC]

Do you find yourself occassionally ordering more fuel or is planned fuel always satisfactory?

- no, as a generalisation ''planned' fuel was not always satisfactory. It needs to be examined. When I were doing it 'regular like' I would rarely take 'planned fuel', but generally added 'to taste' based on a reasonable amount of experience of delays, routes and arrivals, and a seasoned cynical eye for the weather forecasts, but normally just a small 'extra' - sometimes just a couple of hundred. Unless I expected arrival or departure delays - when I would use 'minutes', the extra was based on a % of trip - if you like a 'modified' contingency, and sometimes I would change the planned div if I was a little edgy about weather which would allow more fuel and outwit the beancounters who looked at extra over 'planned' fuel. Again as previous, there were a/c that despite you telling the company, you knew burnt 'over' and nothing was done. I generally always found I 'made' fuel en route through choice of level and route, economic descent planning etc.

It's difficult. Fuel is an emotional thing, on both sides of the fence. For QT I have to ask - what is wrong with landing with 1700kg (737) at a CAVOK 'no delay' quiet airfield? OK, on the NG you may have the 'low fuel' drill to carry out if the company have not been intelligent about that one. We had all sorts of crap from some guys in the last airline. A few years back some used to say you should NEVER land in KEF with less than 6T - ridiculous. There were times 6T was not enough, but on a beautiful clear Icelandic day, 2 runways, nearby div................

For Mulli - I'm still puzzled where all that fuel went!

[Quality Time]

BOAC

Planning 1700kgs?

Fine if you land with it but who fancies pressing TOGA when the ATR ahead of you stops on the runway with a burst tire?

Your options are ? Chances are the pressure will affect your decision making and performance. See it in the sim.

In a war ? OK.

Flying passengers around ? No way.

Edited just to add that pprune has indeed flogged this subject to death previously and I doubt that anyone has varied their own view on fuel after reading what I think.

[Mulligan]

I figured this was hardly a new topic but thought I'd ask anyway. Landing with 30 mins of fuel is "normal" these days but there is a song by Bruce Cockburn called "The trouble with normal is it always gets worse". I've been doing this for 30 years and have no compunction about ordering extra fuel. New Captains will view the current regime as normal and I guess maybe they'll be 'right". Can it be long before 20 mins is considered normal?
Rational, risk analysis, mathmatical modeling, are terms I've grown wary of. It was mathematicians fiddling with computers who were instrumental in the loss of 40% of everyone's money recently. I think the rational method has been elevated to the level of superstition in the present era and I consider my intuition to be at least as valid. That was a rant I guess.
BOAC..I too was wondering where all that fuel went. Glad I didn't need it.

[411A]

Landing with 30 mins of fuel is "normal" these days...

Not for us, it isn't...one hour, OK, generally.
Better safe than sorry.

[framer]

For QT I have to ask - what is wrong with landing with 1700kg (737) at a CAVOK 'no delay' quiet airfield?

If you do it for long enough....like 30 years, there will come a time when something goes wrong and you need most of that to sort yourself out. Thats just my opinion.

Landing with 30 mins of fuel is "normal" these days...

I reckon it's been about 4 years since I've arrived overhead with only 30 mins of fuel. It is certainly not "normal" in my part of the world.
Times definately do change. I remember being told by a training Captain when I did my line training on my first jet (737-300) "don't become a min fuel ******" and min fuel per company planning then was about an hour overhead on a nice day. Mindsets do change.

[BOAC]

Originally Posted by framer

If you do it for long enough....like 30 years, there will come a time when something goes wrong and you need most of that to sort yourself out. Thats just my opinion.

- absolutely, and I would also never advocate aiming to land with just reserves (30 mins) - who does that?. When IT DOES happen, though, are you absolutely sure that that extra tonne you took will be enough - or should you always take 2T extra? 1700kg actually lasts a fair while! As I said earlier, this one goes round and round on all pilot forums. The answer is take what you need and not some fixed figure that you load for all trips. How much extra depends ultimately on when you are 'summoned' to the presence to discuss the extra 4T you load every day

[framer]

I would also never advocate aiming to land with just reserves (30 mins) - who does that?.

I think Mulligans company does. Mulligan?

and not some fixed figure that you load for all trips.

I think we are on the same page BOAC. Some of our flight plans have us arriving overhead with 3T on a nice day because of the legal requirement for an alternate at that destination, in that case I don't add a drop. But if the flight plan has us turning up with 2400kg on a nice day I will bump it to 2600kg so that I can carry out the Missed approach proceedure, fluff around for 20 mins and land with reserves. Or, fluff around for 20mins with the gear out and land below reserves but still under control.
That is my comfort level.

[Mulligan]

I may have misled. The lowest we would be planned to land at is reserve+contingency. Reserve is about 30 mins and contingency is never lower than 10 mins. So 40 mins is the bottom line and it isn't that unusual. At my age it makes me uncomfortable and I will usually take more. But it is "normal" now and as the song goes, "The trouble with normal is it always gets worse"

[BOAC]

planned to land at is reserve+contingency.

- shock/horror! Yes - that must change. Contingency is there to be considered burnt (unless you are tankering to MLM), so you are actually PLANNING to land with the absolute legal minimum. I cannot see how that has been approved, even without a div. In the UK that would mean that most trips would finish with a 'PAN' call and several with a MAYDAY' as part of the 'plan'. Hmm!

[framer]

Yeah thats right, there is no such thing as 'planning to land with contingency'.
Contingency is there as a contingency.