"Friedrich Ostertag" wrote

To my knowledge, airliner pilots quite regularly file flight plans to
closer airports than their real destinations in order to be allowed to
take of with less fuel than what would be required including reserve
for the full distance. At some point during the flight, they re-file a
new flight plan the the real destination, by which time the remaining
fuel is sufficient for the rest of the flight including required
reserve. consequently, they land with less fuel than what would have
been required reserve for the whole distance.

Can anyone confirm this practice?

This was common practice when I flew for PanAm. The procedure was
acceptable because of the 10% fuel factor for international flights.
The procedure was called "redispatch". The procedure was not applicable
to domestic flights because of the fixed 45 minute reserve fuel
requirement. International flights require 30 minutes of fuel plus
fuel for 10% of the total flight time, which for a 10 hour flight would
amount to one and one-half hours of reserve fuel while a domestic
flight arriving at the same time at the same airport would only require
45 minutes of reserve fuel. It was a paper-work and communications
drill which required the co-operation of the dispatcher with an updated
flight release and weather. However, the flight plan with ATC was filed
to the "real" destination, they never knew that you might have to land
short if the destination wx or enroute fuel burn didn't work-out as
desired.

Bob Moore
ATP B-707 B-727
PanAm (retired)