Commercial Fixed Wing
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Situational Awareness; Time Pressure
Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
Company Policy
I was dispatched with 19 minutes worth of extra fuel. However because of a step climb that was held to a lower altitude longer than planned; and a shorter time at cruise altitude along with a significantly earlier than planned step descent my flight was now burning into our extra gas.Around the HELON intersection we were vectored off course for several minutes due to spacing on the arrival. This vectoring occurred at a lower altitude than we were planned to be at and were burning significantly more fuel than was planned to be using at the time. When we were then placed back onto the arrival we were showing less than 5 minutes of extra fuel before burning into reserves. At that point I ACARS'ed the dispatcher and told him I would declare minimum fuel if we received any more excess vectoring. Thankfully when we switched to New York approach we were able to request runway 11 and land without having to fly the full downwind and full approach to runway 4R.
Air carrier pilot reported that he was close to declaring minimum fuel because of inadequate reserves and unrealistic flight planning combined with arrival vectoring.