Am I carrying too much reserve fuel??

[Guest benhoffman]

Phil;I never did get the whole ICAO/JAR thing always made my head hurt especially when JAA is about to be replaced by EASA, yeck!But you're right in that seems Virgin does have a unique policy.I did hear on the grapevine once a few years back that QF had revised its fuel policy with CASA and eliminated the need to carry any contingency fuel. Sure hope that Kangaroo on the tail has a lot of hopping power :) :) :)

[jon b 2,041]

Ben,yes, our policy is final reserve=30 mins holding + diversion fuel = CMR company minimum reserve + cont and any delay fuel = landing fuelI doubt this is a specific policy to virgin as we aren`t sophisticated enough to come up with our own policy! :-)I often hear US carriers passing thier fuel on board as they pass position reports on the Atlanatic. Does that then get passed back to you in dispatch and you make the choice as to if and where to divert?CheersJon

[Guest benhoffman]

ACARS does that, it's called HOWGOZIT and will send the Dispatcher a report of all the waypoints, the level, time and fueleg 50N40W 56 33 51951N50W 09 33 486EGLL 26 37 216eg fifty north forty west at :56 level 33 with 51,900lb of fuel.The Dispatcher and the ATC coordinator (who gets the big picture of ATC capacity vs demands etc) will say "oh all Heathrow flights between 0000 and 0030z add 20 mins of holding fuel, they're at reduced capacity because LACC is at lunch" or whatever so the Captain & DX can plan accordingly.Any holding fuel is mutually agreed between the Captain and Dispatcher as the MAXIMUM time they want the flight to hold before diverting.If there is forecast to be a lot of delay the flight can be planned at a reduced mach so as to absorb it inflight. On my last LHR flight specially planned at .82 (772) we were about :20 early but the WX was bad so we slowed right down meaning we only sat at OCK for :10 or so (oh and then waitied thirty minutes for a slot! )At airports like Narita for example which often have 30 minute holds as the norm its often hard to get the crew to accept minimum fuel.Hope to be at LHR soon again, its a nice airport, not much good landside photography tho, and there's too much red at the Virgin check in! :)

[jon b 2,041]

Thats good that as a US captain there`s someone backing you up and helping with decisions.We have to make all the choices and get paid less than our American friends:-(I went into LHR last month when the weather was bad, thankfully with lots of spare gas,held for 20 mins had 2 windshear go arounds so diverted into LGW.I`ve been very cautious since and on my last trip with a similar forecast I had a planned landing fuel of 14T.We managed to make up 14mins and 2T of fuel enroute because of stronger tailwinds and ended up going straight into LHR without holding with fine weather, and landing with an embarrassing 16TIf we were stuck in a taxi delay at JFK for example and fuel was getting low for LHR we would refile for somewhere like SNN enroute but continue to LHR if possible.Jon

[phil747fan 14]

>Thats good that as a US captain there`s someone backing you>up and helping with decisions.We have to make all the choices>and get paid less than our American friends:-(>I went into LHR last month when the weather was bad,>thankfully with lots of spare gas,held for 20 mins had 2>windshear go arounds so diverted into LGW.I`ve been very>cautious since and on my last trip with a similar forecast I>had a planned landing fuel of 14T.We managed to make up 14mins>and 2T of fuel enroute because of stronger tailwinds and ended>up going straight into LHR without holding with fine weather,>and landing with an embarrassing 16T>If we were stuck in a taxi delay at JFK for example and fuel>was getting low for LHR we would refile for somewhere like SNN>enroute but continue to LHR if possible.>>Jon Jon,you mean you do the math on your own without checking with ops ...???!!!i dont mean you cant do that but if not an emergency no way to do that for a canadian aircraft operated with legal dispatch ops without talking or writing with ops flight dispatcher and flight follower ... refile enroute is RIF and this is really a fuel cut killer but the weather must be very good ... not always the situation over SNN ... just a question why you dont do direct RIF with your ops before departure ....seems with the increasing price of fuel it will come more often ...in old days it was the best option for air france and 747 classic from RUN to CDG at ELB the RIF point if the fuel was ok go if not a landing at Marseille ... it worked without fuel stop 90% and save a lot of fuel ...on long flight to arrive with 1t of fuel you need to carry more than 600 kg extra ....see you

[cowpatz 243]

When met conditions are above a predefined criteria and independent runways are avail, our ops are to plan to land with a minimum of 60 minutes holding fuel (at equiv 20000ft). This includes the approach. Normal enroute requirements are 2% contingency plus a PDA (performance deterioration allowance. This is an engineering function comparing actual fuel burns to book figures to get an additive). We always carry enroute alternates and these must be above landing minma. This covers the depressurised flight scenario. This is a recent change to our fuel policy (hasn't every airline had one recently????). We used to always carry a destination alternate. What some of the bean counters (and some despatchers) don't realise is that if the forecast is wrong (frequent occurance) then every man and his dog is going to want to divert to the alternate. In the past we used to have carriers that carried a little fat that allowed min fuel aircraft to get priority. What happens now when we are all down to min fuel and all trying to get to the same divert airfield? This ridiculous carbon tax is going to add extra pressure to operators and of course the safety pendulum will swing further to the right. It is going to be an interesting year.