Avianca, crashing in New York, would've been saved by another 10 minutes of fuel. Unforseen arrival delays got them into that mess. That could've been a dispatcher who doesn't know that New York is sometimes a clusterfuck.
Dispatchers pick the fuel amount, but pilots have the experience to know when they need more. Flying to Toronto, arriving at rush hour, weather is forecast to be down, you want to take more fuel. Your alternate is London. Dispatcher gives you 20 minutes of fuel to hold, but what he's not thinking about is that if you're not getting in, no one else is, either. Guess where their alternates are, too? London, probably. So, now the traffic that was meant for Pearson, is now showing up at London. London isn't meant to handle the same amount of traffic that Pearson does. This equates to more holding.
The problem isn't that pilot's are always asking for more fuel. The problem is that when pilots determine that they don't have enough, for reasons similar to the ones given in the preceding paragraph, they have to damn near get into a verbal fistfight with dispatch to get it. 98% of the time, there is no problem going with minimum required fuel. My goodness, my flights now are no alternate IFR more often than not now! There's no problem with that, but if the potential exists for there to be delays and changing weather, there should be no argument with dispatch to get an alternate, and to get more fuel.
Thats all.
Shankdude
