Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 150; Flight Crew Total 10000; Flight Crew Type 2000
Situational Awareness
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors; Procedure; Weather
Full tanks for flight to LAX. Projected landing 6.6. Due to rides planned cruise altitude not acceptable so we used FL300. Later in flight that was unacceptable and FL280 the only reasonable ride. Planned landing fuel in FMC 5.7 at that time. Not great; but not bad. When fuel in center tanks burned out our FMC planned landing fuel dropped significantly - now 4.9. ATC sends us lower and drops speed to 250 KIAS fuel burn suffers. LAX turns around airport landing to the East now and fuel burn suffers. Long story short we find ourselves on final with 3600 lbs of fuel and not happy about it since FMC guidance led us to be mostly happy with our progress for 5 hours of a 6 hour flight. Real exciting in the last hour! Hugely unsafe? No; but not optimal by any means. Nothing heard from Dispatch about our burn progress throughout entire flight despite Dispatch asking me to call prior to flight about full tanks and lower than optimal fuel for landing. I'd have probably stopped in PHX or LAS if we'd had a discussion about it. That's not a good thing I'm the Captain and I'd not have it any other way; but it's nice to feel like Dispatch has your back and we do NOT feel that way today due to multiple reasons (mostly high Dispatch turnover) as discussed in recent School class sponsored by company. This is the lowest fuel I have ever blocked in with. I don't know what the Review Committee feels about that quantity of fuel on a stormy night in LA with heavy rains and the airport configured to non-standard; but I'd love to hear from someone about it. After all; the only Captain I generally fly with is me.
B737 Captain reports landing in LAX with 3600 pounds of fuel due to a variety of factors; after expecting to land with 6600 pounds.