Originally Posted by UAL Traveler

If fuel were free, or very inexpensive, there would be no argument. The cost to carry additional non-revenue-producing weight would be zero, or minimal. Unfortunately that is now not the case. The luxury of, so as to say, topping off the tanks, is one that fewer and fewer operators can afford.

Flying closer to legal minimum fuel loads simply requires a bit more care and thoughtfulness in planning (metaphorically referred to above as 'brains'). Part 121 transport aircraft simply do not fall out of the sky all that frequently due to lack of fuel.

As an undergrad, I used to do a fair bit of corporate flying along with some Part 135 charter. This was quite a while ago when fuel costs were beginning to increase, and my boss figured out the cost savings of flying with less generous (but certainly legal) fuel loads. I wasn't happy about it at first, nor were the other pilots, but we adapted, and ultimately were quite comfortable with the regime... across a spectrum of aircraft, routes and weather. We found out that it wasn't rocket science to calculate the additional modest fuel increment to get a 3-sigma comfort level. Yes, we had to be vigilant, but that was part of the equation, no matter what.

In our small group, with each of us flying several thousand hours over several years (yep, that's a LOT of flying when you're also a full-time student), I can't recall any incidents arising from fuel issues.

Just one person's anecdotes.