I think it is an important and requires more than a glib answer, BUT practically speaking it depends :)

Counter intuitively it may well be that the bigger the aircraft the more likely it is you won’t always have an alternate - or a real one at least. The reason I say this is for example the A380 (and to a lesser extent the 747 and 777) is not going to fit into every airport so the potential alternates become few and far between in some cases and the fuel required to carry an alternate is higher.

I note you are in Australia, so the lack of suitable airports drives a lot of decisions, whereas if you were operating in the US or Europe the decision making is different.

Perth for example is so far from anywhere useful that many carriers use “island reserve” or a version thereof.

in the machine I fly we carry technical alternates where we can and real alternates when necessary, and the times you need a real alternate it has a real fuel impost, though we can, under certain circumstances give the alternate away.

so to answer your question, a blanket, always carry an alternate answer isn’t necessarily the best or only answer

“Minimum fuel” on arrival at destination includes alternate fuel (caveat isolated runways and whatever).

If you are talking about arriving at your destination with only final reserve then that’s a judgement call on the day.

Minimum fuel in a nut shell means any unexpected delay and you will be burning your final reserve fuel eg 30 min in turbine engine. Minimum fuel does not include alternate fuel.
It was discussed here: https://www.pprune.org/atc-issues/32...efinition.html

and here: https://www.pprune.org/questions/607...l#post10150452

Good Point New Era. We fly a lot to China. And fuel is really expensive there. I always ask the latest ZFW to carry as much as possible profitable fuel. Most of the time we carry so much fuel that we have enough for the return sector. That’s the positive thing when flying into China. :}

I recently carried round-trip fuel from the UK to Angola in a 787. Fuel price must be very expensive to make it worthwhile on an eight-hour sector.

I think that Meikleour makes a good point about blocked runways versus weather. Although the regulations allow for dispatch without an alternate (in certain cases), I would consider it prudent to have a plan ‘B’ whatever the weather forecast.

Pineteam that is the US definition for declaring low fuel. In ICAO you shall declare an emergency when your useable fuel on landing is calculated as less than FRF.

In your scenario any delay should not mean you are into your final reserve fuel. It could mean that you are using your alternate fuel.

Minimum planned and calculated en route fuel for arrival IS FRF plus ALT. However, it is perfectly acceptable and legal to continue to destination if your calculated fuel is less than FRF plus ALT.

Note that John Citizen is in Australia and a lot of the time fuel for an alternate is not legally required at all. You can be planned to a single runway and provided the forecast is ok then you can plan to get there with fixed plus variable reserve and burn through the variable reserve on the way.

As for what you should actually carry? Our company policy is to plan to land with 2000 kg (about an hour of fuel) assuming no other requirements. On a nice clear day/night I‘m totally happy with that and am comfortable burning into it a little bit. On a typical sector, if we were to plan minimum fuel we’d be landing with about 1200 kg including variable reserve. To my mind, that’s not enough, it only takes a single go-around and you’re looking at eating into fixed reserves, but 2000 kg, no problem.

There are a few times I would plan to have more than 2000kg. First, when it is required by the company fuel policy, i.e., weather below the alternate minima so an alternate is required and/or thunderstorms or traffic holding requires extra. Second, when it is not required but I‘m not happy. An example is when fog is forecast for after our arrival time. I have seen fog come in early often enough for that to trigger alarm bells in my head. When I want extra fuel but it is not legally required, I will discuss with load control to see how much can be taken without affecting payload. I may decide to take as much as that allows as that gives me divert options for as long as possible, or I may decide it’s worthy of offloading payload.

The reality is, particularly on the East coast of AUS, even if you don’t have enough fuel to get to an alternate, the amount of time you are committed to your destination is normally minimal.

In summary, I’m happy to go along with company policy, but if ever I feel like I need more, then I will take more. I’ve never been asked to justify my fuel load, but if I was and I couldn’t justify it, then it was a poor decision. In other words, I take extra when I have a reason to.

Have you said what type you fly? Without knowing that, 500kg extra could be very different.