Pilots complain that fuel restricted to save costs

[tblue37]

Pilots complain that fuel restricted to save costs
By Joan Lowy - Associated Press Writer
August 9, 2008

Washington — Pilots are complaining that their airline bosses, desperate to cut costs, are forcing them to fly uncomfortably low on fuel. Safety for passengers and crews could be compromised, they say. The situation got bad enough three years ago, even before the latest surge in fuel prices, that NASA sent a safety alert to federal aviation officials. No action.

Since then, pilots, flight dispatchers and others have continued to sound off with their own warnings, yet the Federal Aviation Administration says there is no reason to order airlines to back off their effort to keep fuel loads to a minimum. “We can’t dabble in the business policies or the personnel policies of an airline,” FAA spokesman Les Dorr said. He said there was no indication safety regulations were being violated.

The September 2005 safety alert was issued by NASA’s confidential Aviation Safety Reporting System, which allows air crews to report safety problems without fear their names will be disclosed. “What we found was that because they carried less fuel on the airplane, they were getting into situations where they had to tell air traffic control, ‘I need to get on the ground,”’ said Linda Connell, director of the NASA reporting system. With fuel prices now their biggest cost, airlines are aggressively enforcing new policies designed to reduce consumption. In March, for example, an airline pilot told NASA he landed his regional jet with less fuel than required by FAA regulations. “Looking back,” he said, “I would have liked more gas yesterday.” He also complained that his airline was “ranking” captains according to who landed with the least amount.

A month earlier, a Boeing 747 captain reported running low on fuel after meeting strong headwinds crossing the Atlantic en route to John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He said he wanted to stop to add fuel but continued on to Kennedy after consulting his airline’s operations manager, who told him there was adequate fuel aboard the jet. When the plane arrived at Kennedy, the captain said it had so little fuel that had there been any delay in landing, “I would have had to declare a fuel emergency” — a term that tells air traffic controllers a plane needs immediate priority to land.

The last major U.S. air crash attributed to low fuel was on Jan. 25, 1990, when an Avianca Boeing 707 ran out while waiting to land at Kennedy. Seventy-three of 158 aboard were killed.

More at link:
http://www2.ljworld.com/news/2008/aug/09/pilots_complain_fuel_restricted_save_costs/

[tblue37]

1. This is scary enough that I am getting more and mroe afraid to fly.

I have recently read a post on DU quoting a former pilot who says he won't get on a plane run by an airline now becase he is certain that they are cutting costs by cutting corners on safety and maintenance.

[SheilaT]

9. Flying is still safer than any other

form of transportation.

It's just that when a plane crashes a lot of people are killed at once and so it's pretty big news. Meanwhile, every single day dozens, or is it hundreds of people are killed in car accidents.

Some years back the Kansas City Star did a piece where they did a short profile of every single person in the metro area who'd been killed in a car accident in a recent month. Not only was it surprising how many were killed -- most had not originally been noted in the paper -- but how steady the pace of accidents is.

[tblue37]

Hmmm. I think this is a really important issue.

I wonder why no one else thinks so.

[tblue37]

2. Hmmm. I think this is a really important issue.

I wonder why no one else thinks so.

[MuseRider]

3. Gotta fly tomorrow

so I am not saying anything else. I HATE flying anyway. The crap you have to put up with just to get on the plane and the discomfort on the plane were reason enough, now this. Thanks, we do need to know these things. I think I will stay up all night so I can sleep during the flight.

[Tindalos]

4. The airlines are getting desperate.

A friend told me AA is losing $70 per passenger every time they fly. They got that from someone who works at the airline, so I can't confirm it. I don't doubt that the airlines are hurting financially due to fuel costs, reduced air travel, etc. Maybe they could pay for fuel out of the CEO's bonuses. Nah, they couldn't cause the bosses any more financial hardship, could they?

[JohnyCanuck]

5. The end of travel (for the serfs and peasantry anyway)

The end of travel

High oil prices are crippling airlines and travellers alike and we may only be at the start of a new, global class divide between the stranded and the mobile

Nicole Baute
Staff reporter

In Europe's late medieval period, the labouring masses rarely travelled further than a few dozen miles from where they were born. For them, travel was dangerous, onerous and slow.

But wealthy aristocrats travelled far and wide in the name of diplomacy, meeting leaders from other countries and extending their power and influence.

For Steven Flusty, an associate professor of geography at York University, this is what society could once again look like if predictions that the lower-middle classes will no longer be able to afford to fly in just a few years come true.

It would be tremendously debilitating and could wind up "breaking down everything below a certain class level, where they are being held in space as if it's some kind of a container," he says.

The North American airline industry is under siege, with exorbitant fuel costs, a slowing economy and competition from Asia and the Middle East leading to employee layoffs and flight reductions.

Within a year or two, insists writer James Howard Kunstler and others, it will all be over. They predict the demise of the commercial airline industry as it currently exists.

http://www.thestar.com/article/471491

[cloudbase]

6. There are minimum reserves that must be carried

i.a.w. regulations. While I'm aware that there are pressures to be applied by the companies, the pilot in command is the ultimate authority (and bears ultimate responsibility) for whether a flight can be made safely.

[bdab1973]

8. That is true...

And the airlines are not allowed to cut fuel below that minimum. What's happening in this case, the airlines are cracking down on carrying excess fuel, also referred to "tankering" gas. We have this same issue going on within the USAF. The idea is, you burn more fuel just to carry the extra fuel. If a mission requires, say, 30,000 lbs of fuel, with a required minimum reserve of about 7,000 lbs, then carrying about 37,000-38,000 lbs of fuel is fine. But it makes no sense to be extra conservative and put 45,000 lbs of fuel on board, because now the airplane will burn more just to haul the extra 8,000 lbs of fuel.

Most flight dispatching programs and fuel planning programs are conservative anyways when it comes to figuring required fuel. We would often burn less than the calculated fuel load. In times of cheap gas, there's no problem with throwing on a few extra hundred gallons of jet fuel for "mom and the kids", but in today's market of $4-$5 a gallon for jet fuel, it makes no sense. The airlines know that the FAA-mandated fuel reserves are there for a reason, so there's no real excuse to put tons (literally) of extra fuel when you've already got extra on board anyways.

[FormerOstrich]

7. I am kicking as many quality posts as I can

if nothing else but to make sure GD is something other than JE.

:kick:

[tblue37]

10. Thanks. Most of my posts drop like lead balloons, because they tend not to be

about the scandal du jour, but about thigs like this, or things like the cops who invaded an innocent mayor's house and shot his two dogs as part of the country's ongoing "war on pot." No one seems to care about such things anymore--just about sex scandals and such.