Originally Posted by
Enigma368
To me the biggest surprise is that it could make it as far as Fresno but not SFO, since than is basically 96-97% of the way to SFO.
I wonder what would happen in these scenarios if Fresno happened to be your final destination and you demanded to get off in Fresno. I presume they would now allow you but then they cannot keep you prisoner?
I gather the rules for fuel planning have gotten more nuanced/complex, and won't pretend to know them, but I believe they involve things like enough fuel to execute a full missed approach at the destination, go around and try again, then divert to an alternate. I can easily believe that SFO's missed approach and go-around is far more involved and fuel consuming than FAT's, beyond the 120 miles closer that FAT is.
To the second point, it depends -- I had a planned fuel diversion years ago on a UA 737-400 (I think) going from ORD-SMF (Sacramento) due to high headwinds; we stopped in Colorado Springs away from a gate. They did end up bringing up stairs to offload a sick passenger, which added a half hour or so to the stop, but probably wouldn't have let anyone else off (extremely unlikely COS was anyone's final destination on an ORD-SMF flight though). On the other hand, another poster here noted a fuel stop in SLC where they were allowed to get off and rebook direct to their destination.