Airlines running fuel margins thin

wrote:
On Nov 9, 3:52 am, J a c k wrote:
wrote:

...apparently the captains lack the necessary backbone to tell
dispatch that they need more gas. instead they just blindly follow
company policy and whatever dispatch tells them.

I wouldn't bet on that.

Jack

With the upheaval in the Airline business, there has been much
pressure to lower costs, and prevent waist. As a life long Airline
pilot, I can look back over many instances where that "little extra
for the wife and kids" made the difference between landing at the
destination, and diverting to "land short".

Statistical however, the bean counters make a surprisingly good
argument concerning the system-wide cumulative effects of each flight
"wasting" that portion of the extra that is consumed (as a result of
increased fuel burn due to higher weight). This would account for why
southwest might tanker fuel more that america west, the shorter the
leg, the less the waste of carrying excess fuel.

One thing I know for sure from personal observation, once a pilot has
the "Disease" (as I describe it to my co-pilots), this orthodoxy of
thinking seems to result in the success of the flight being weighed
with an obsessive over-emphasis on how much fuel was saved.

It all boils down to who you feel you work for. If your first loyalty
is to the company, you are much more likely to "have the disease". If,
however, you feel your fiduciary responsibility is to the folks in the
back, you get to know the voice of the dispatchers a bit better,
because we are not allowed to add more than a modest amount on the
computer, above that amount, we must "defend" our request directly
with dispatch.

I know of at least one other Capt at Warner Springs who spend as much
time on the phone as I do. ;-)


Contrary to the apparently recent awakening of a letter-to-the-editor
writer in Airline Pilot magazine, the power to "Just say no" has been
around since day one and is certainly one of the more useful tools.
Those four stripes and the union dues that go along with them don't mean
much if we don't run the show on our own terms when it comes down to the
basics of fuel, weather, etc. There are other ways to get the point
across in addition to parking it, of course.

I enjoyed it, but I don't miss it.

I do like the way we do it at my glider club--every member is the safety
officer, so a wheel doesn't turn unless everybody on the scene is happy
with the arrangement.



Jack