Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Time Pressure
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
General None Reported / Taken
Company Policy; Procedure
We were dispatched on a southern route from Spain to EWR that brought us over OWENZ and then RBV. The flight plan showed us crossing OWENZ at FL360 with a descent to 10;000 FT after OWENZ. It's my understanding that Dispatch does not have the ability to set a crossing altitude at a waypoint. They can only show a flight level change from a waypoint hence; FL360 at OWENZ [85 NM to EWR] with the flight level change after that. With these assumptions we had a Fuel Over Destination (FOD) of 7.5 or roughly 45 minutes until the tanks are empty. 45 minutes is my personal clear and a zillion bottom line. However; planning to cross OWENZ at FL360 is simply not realistic. If our descent profile has bad information then doesn't the flight planned FOD become an unknown? If we can't cross OWENZ at FL360 then we certainly will have something less than 45 minutes of flight time at EWR; won't we? After a long discussion; the Dispatcher and the Duty Manager assured me that they would negotiate something with ATC to get us a more favorable descent. In other words; something other than what is on the flight plan; which is why I am submitting this report. This flight plan did not reflect a realistic scenario of the conditions we were expecting on this routing. So; we make up for this shortfall by declaring a minimum fuel state and expect priority handling to fix it? My understanding is that a minimum fuel advisory means that we cannot accept any undue delays. For traffic priority; though; we need to declare an emergency. So in this case; we took off assuming we would get traffic priority i.e.; in a state of emergency. Now I'm not sure if that violates any FAR's per se; (apparently not because according to the Dispatcher this is routine) but if something happened couldn't and wouldn't the FAA question my preflight planning and why I took off not knowing how much fuel I would have at my destination? What I advocated for that flight to avoid this situation; and I will do so again here; is to use a fast flight plan with a fuel stop whenever the flight planned FOD is less than about one hour's worth of flying time. In our case; the airplane was fully fueled during my discussion with Dispatch. We would need about five hours of flying to get below Maximum Gross Landing Weight (MGLW) so stopping in say LPPT was now out of the question. ATC did not want us up over Canada because we were arriving [early morning] and our westbound flight would conflict with the eastbound tracks. Which left us with one choice: hoping ATC will help us out or declare an emergency. In retrospect; I think I should have insisted that they defuel and plan a fuel stop. I also think the flight planning software needs to have the capability of creating realistic descent scenarios. I just don't see how we can continue relying on ATC to fix our problems for us. It worked out for us mostly because we arrived early on a weekend. ATC gave us a very favorable routing (direct RBV after 60W); an unrestricted descent from our recommended altitude of FL390 to cross 35 east of RBV at 7;000 FT; and then direct to HOWYA for a straight in to 4L. ATC gave us the best routing and descent possible and we touched down with just 7.0.
Air carrier Captain laments flight planning software that does not use realistic descent profiles for fuel planning; resulting in landing in a low fuel situation.