Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine; Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 110
Time Pressure; Communication Breakdown; Confusion; Workload
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
General Maintenance Action
Procedure; Human Factors; Company Policy
After swapping planes due to a return to gate Maintenance issues and a 4.5 hour delay; we were provided with release 3 on a new aircraft. Release 2 had provided a gate fuel amount of 35.0. During my walk around; the fueler stopped me and asked what the fuel load was; because he had not received anything yet for this aircraft; and wanted to get it fueled so we could depart. I told him the release had said 35.0 but not to quote me on it; and to wait for the fuel release. Upon doing the before push checklist; Captain referenced the Release 3 [flight plan] packet and called; Planned gate 34.9; 35.0 onboard. Once airborne; the [estimated fuel] in [destination] was reading about 8.0; but the [fuel chart] was saying we should land with 11.8. Upon investigating the problem; we realized that [flight plan] Page 1 from release 2 was included in the packet of release 3; and we referenced the wrong fuel ladder during the before push checklist. Release 3 had a plan gate of 38.5. We were referring to the correct release 3; but the fuel ladder from release 2 was sequenced before the fuel ladder for release 3.
Was Captain on [flight]. The aircraft had a BCL FAULT written up twice; it was fixed at gate. Took a delay for that. On taxi out we got same fault and did gate return. At gate Dispatch ACARSed us and told us VCTS (Thunderstorm in Vicinity METAR) and asked if we wanted gas; which brought plan gate FOB (Fuel on Board) to 35.0. Maintenance fixed more things and did an engine run; at this point we are 3 hours late. We board and fault appears again. Deplane again. This time we get a new airplane. New release for new airplane wasn't up yet; but we got PDC with old route and ATC told they would keep it active. I call Dispatch and was told we got new release shortly. Everything was loaded up and the fueler put 35.0 onboard the new plane. I referenced release 3 but the file for some reason included release 2 [flight plan] page 1. This is a huge issue that needs to be addressed. While browsing through flight plan I noticed the route was different from PDC we got. This happened right before push and while we loaded the new route in we missed [estimated fuel] at destination. On climbout we notice FOB is much less than we anticipated. I referenced FOB at gate for the before push checklist with release 3 but was zoomed in on page 2 which was still release 2. I had a bias that it was release 3 because even the title of the page said release 3. In the end we took well above release 2 minimum to fuel but below release 3. On climb after seeing the problem we immediately got in touch with Dispatch who gave us release 4 which still kept the alternate and we had enough fuel to continue. This is a perfect case where things just slipped through the cracks with many things going wrong and not working properly. I learned a lot and will be much more cautious with plane swaps and releases.
A320 flight crew reported using the wrong fuel numbers for the flight.