wjj

Yesterday......LGA-ORD....middle of the afternoon. We push back more or less on time and wait about 25 minutes until wheels up. Normal for LGA that time of day. Clear weather in ORD and LGA and in between. Smooth flight. Then, all of a sudden, the captain announces that we are low on fuel and are diverting to DTW. He blames the 25 minute wait from pushback to takeoff (which again, is about normal at LGA) and "unexpected" headwinds (as if 50 other planes had not flown that route already and headwinds were not known).

ORD is home for me, so just another delay getting home, but a lot of people missed connections. Some to international flights. That had to cost AA plus obviously not display great customer service.

Why on earth would AA and the captain (who I believe has the final say on how much fuel is loaded) cut it so close?

This is the second time in a month where a flight I was on ran low on fuel and had to get more. The first time (in ATL) we never got off the ground, and then a storm rolled through causing chaos that the GA was completely unable to handle. ATL-ORD are RJs and many people just wanted to get their valet bags off and go home and try the next day rather than get to ORD well after midnight and search for a hotel since everyone who was connecting - including international - had already missed their connection. The flight was already 4.5 hours late and counting before they tried to board the second time. And there were 25 planes in line and a storm rolling through. So another 2 hour delay coming at least. AA refused to give any hotel vouchers blaming the delay on the weather rather than their not loading enough fuel causing the plane to have to get out of line and refuel and then get slammed by the storm. This seemed to be a bit disingenuous to me because AA and the captain clearly knew how long the line was and even announced it prior to our pushing back. I finally got my bag and stayed at a hotel near ATL (did not ask for any compensation or hotel voucher - just wanted out of the chaos and likely another 4 hours in an RJ - making it 7 hours for the evening).

But the bottom line is this. Two flights in the last month where not enough fuel was loaded. This is crazy! I worry about my ORD-NRT trip tomorrow. If there are heavier headwinds than anticipated is the captain going to have to plead with the Russians to let us land at some military base in Siberia?

I assume recommended fuel load is a corporate decision. But doesn't the captain still have the final say? Or are the captains punished if they defy corporate? I know it is a weight issue and keeping the plane as light as possible to burn less fuel is important. But you can take counting pennies just so far before you start getting negative results.

There were not a lot of happy people on that completely full flight yesterday and not a lot of goodwill earned by AA.

Krysia

Was on a flight from LAS to DFW on Monday the pilot made the fuel truck come back because he didnt load enough fuel and the pilot refused to even consider leaving. Yeah for pilot!

guv1976

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry: BlackBerry8530/5.0.0.601 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/417)

"But you can take counting pennies just so far before you start getting negative results."

And I'm sure that AA bases its decisions on what it expects will maximize revenue (even with the occasional refueling stop), while complying with U.S. regulations regarding minimum fuel required per flight. (I think that the U.S. requires enough fuel to get from origin to destination, with 45 minutes of circling time, plus enough fuel to reach a designated alternate airport.)

Whether there was a miscalculation made for your flight, or the headwinds changed appreciably after takeoff is something neither of us knows.

FabrizioB

Strong head winds this way is very common !

Was the plane full ? This would be a third parameter for extra fuel burn.

FWAAA

Perhaps because it's not an issue on some very high percentage of flights? If only one in 100 or one in one thousand flights diverted yesterday for more fuel, then AA's fuel management program is working. If no flights ever had to divert for more fuel, then obviously they're carrying, on average, too much heavy fuel.

AA flew about 1,800 mainline flights yesterday and we don't know how many of them shared your experience. If that particular captain diverts for more fuel on a frequent basis, then there might be a problem.

Thing is, when your flight has to divert, it's a problem for you. But your flight diverting, in the absence of more information, doesn't reveal any systemic problem, as flights sometimes divert for more fuel even where nobody has been negligent.

Probably more likely to land in Alaska for more fuel if that becomes necessary.

Dispatchers make the initial decision on how much fuel is loaded, but the captain has the final say. If the pilots believe that too little fuel was loaded, they can call for more. And they aren't punished for adding more.

Your post appears to imply that the pilot screwed up or lied (eg, the 50 earlier flights meant that headwinds couldn't possibly have been stronger than expected) but it is possible, isn't it, that the headwinds were stronger at the time of your flight than earlier in the day?

For you, the captain and AA failed. But if very few flights diverted yesterday in clear weather for more fuel, perhaps everything actually went according to plan (in the bigger 1,800 flight picture). We don't have enough facts to make an informed determination.

FabrizioB

Here's your flight graph :
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/A.../KORD/tracklog

and map :
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/A...729Z/KLGA/KORD

You were at 410knots (GS) @ 32000 feet. Nothing unusual.

The begining of descent, circle, etc., shows a very sudden decision to land at any nearest airport. The cause could be something else, but they might prefer to lie about incident, mechanical problems and give a less stressfull reason.

The stop in DTW seems to have last 65 minutes. That's a lot for just refuelling. Did they made you deplane ?

wjj

No, they did not make us deplane. But we did pull up to a gate and a few people did get off though for some reason.

I thought that there could be another reason other than fuel, but the decent was smooth, if not pretty fast. Seat belt sign was off. Did not seem to be any mechanical issue.

aamilesslave

1054 on 9/19 wasn't in compliance if this is the rule. We didn't have enough fuel to circle for the projected 45 minute hold at DFW and were diverted to OKC after circling for a mere 10 minutes. The captain took a lot of heat from the pax (most of it was pure silly, though), but he was very up front - going between cabins to make announcements in OKC, answering questions, and admitting that the weather caught everyone off guard.

Steve M

In addition to variables like wind and ground hold time, there's also cargo and passenger weight. Although cargo weight is likely known precisely, don't they just estimate passenger and checked luggage, at a fixed average amount per each? Based on your standard bell curve, you're going to have a few "outlier" flights each day, where for whatever reason the average weight per passenger and/or per checked bags is significantly over the assumed amount. This is probably going to be worse on a regional jet, as fewer passengers means a smaller sample size, which creates longer tails on either side of the bell curve. And, short of weighing each passenger and checked bag, you won't know about this until the flight is underway and you can calculate a larger than expected fuel burn.

AZbba

I recall reading somewhere that AA is notorious for cutting it as close as possible on fuel. They also have a program that gives the pilots bonuses for fuel savings.

But of course the final decision for how much fuel to load is up the pilot.

Steve M

Whatever the particular rule is, I think you're mis-interpreting the rule. If the rule is 45 minutes of hold time fuel required, then it's 45 minutes of hold time AND fuel to get to the alternate airport, not OR. You may very well have had enough fuel to circle DFW for 45 minutes, but what if the airplane just before yours crashes on the runway? You need to be able to get to the alternate airport (along with some slack) assuming the worse-case at your primary destination. In fact, I think the rule is interpreted that you need to get to your alternate airport, plus XX minutes (45?) of hold time. So, in order to be legal to circle DFW for 45 minutes once that requirement becomes known, you'd need that 45 minutes of fuel, PLUS enough to get to OKC, PLUS enough to hold there for 45 minutes.

Steve M

That's right. If AA wanted a near-zero chance of fuel diversions, the cost of the extra fuel on every flight would exceed the cost of dealing with the few diversions they have. The trick is to get the balance as close to perfect as possible, such that the cost of diversions does not exceed the overall fuel savings. But if they're trying to minimize cost with their fuel program, there are going to be a small number of fuel diversions.

That, I would not worry about. Part of the calculus in the fuel loading decisions is the cost should a fuel diversion become necessary. A long-haul int'l flight such as ORD-NRT has an enormous cost if there are delays. A good number of the passengers will be connecting onward from NRT, many on flights that are the last or only connection of the day. Plus, it's not as if they have extra aircraft at NRT: if the inbound flight from ORD is delayed, then one of the outbound flights from NRT to the US will be delayed as well, putting in jeopardy all of those connections. So, I'd be very surprised to hear that an NRT-bound AA flight from the US ever had a fuel issue that was caused by light fuel loading.

FlyerChrisK

Notorious? Look for the threads on UA/CO's "Gander Hub" due to all of their TATL 752 refueling diversions.

Every airline wants to strike a balance between avoiding diversions while carrying the minimum fuel necessary to achieve that. Occasionally, there will be two-/three-sigma events that require a diversion.

sba110

Kind of. It's enough fuel to get to the destination airport, plus fly to the alternate, and then 45 minutes at normal cruise.

However, the relevant rule has nothing to do with "circling". Also in regards to some other posts here, it is very unlikely that AA didn't follow this rule. You may think that this is what happened on your flight, but as a passenger, you simply don't have enough information. Also, note that the rule merely requires that enough fuel is available when the flight begins and throughout the flight taking into account updated (as available) weather conditions, NOT that enough fuel to comply with the requirements is available throughout the flight when some weather, TFRs, enroute navigation equipment outages, etc. conditions aren't known yet. Conditions change, so that would be impossible. In other words, these requirements only need to be met given current knowledge at any point throughout the flight. If there was suddenly some change that would delay the aircraft past the point where it could reach its original destination and still meet these requirements, it would have to divert (btw., please don't say that the aircraft "was diverted" - aircraft aren't diverted, the crew makes the final decision to divert). However, in that scenario, this rule would not have been broken even though the flight had diverted. Here's the relevant rule to those who care about specifics:

Oh, and if you're really interested, please note that it says "IFR conditions". While most of you will be flying as a passenger on a part 121 flight that operates under IFR (as do many other flights, be it military, private, "small" planes, etc.), there are paid passenger flights that are not part 121 (rather, they are part 135) and that operate (sometimes, depending on the weather) under VFR conditions (for example, some shuttle flights in Hawaii, such as Go Mokulele's Cessna 208s). There is a different rule that applies to these flights:

DXjr

The fuel regulation for domestic flights can be summarized thus:

1. Fuel from A to B
2. 45 minutes reserve (calculated many ways, depending on the carrier, but all require FAA approval.)

These two are absolutely required. From there, we can add:

3. Alternate fuel, if an alternate is required.
4. Holding fuel, if the dispatcher or PIC deem it operationally necessary.

Whatever the sum totals of the above four items are, that is the absolute minimum fuel that the plane can takeoff with. Anything above this is to cover contingencies such as longer than normal taxi delays, or weather deviations, among other things.

Once the plane is airborne, the pilot can then use that fuel however he/she deems necessary, and he can even burn into that 45 minutes reserve if he needs to (although, many pilots believe that they should not/can not, which defeats its purpose.)


As for headwinds, they are already built into the flight plan. The winds can differ slightly than what was observed (it's only done twice a day,) rarely being so far off that a diversion is necessary because of a bad wind sounding. Usually, the case is because the flight is not flying the flight plan as prescribed, such as flying higher/lower to avoid turbulence, or ATC won't let up to their filed altitude due to traffic, which, in turn, may put them into stonger winds. There's lots of variables in this, so there's no way to pinpoint a specific answer.

As for a 25 minute taxi, that should've already been accounted for in the flight plan.

As for the diversion, even if the PIC was aware that he could make it to his destination with his remaining fuel on board, if he does not feel comfortable about it, then it's fully within his authority to divert to a suitable airport where he can get more fuel and continue the flight.


Part 135 and part 121 have their own fueling regulations, and supercede anything in part 91.