Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Flight Crew Last 90 Days 75; Flight Crew Total 4500; Flight Crew Type 2000
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
General None Reported / Taken
Environment - Non Weather Related; Company Policy
I'm writing this to highlight systemic issues with my airline's fuel planning policies that manifested itself on this particular flight. We were flying on a perfectly fine VFR day. I had realized prior to signing the release that our planned arrival fuel was lower than I like; but I accepted it because the company has been pushing for lower fuel quantities over and over. Had I asked Dispatch for more I am certain that I would not have been successful.Once in cruise ATC asked us if we wanted to speed up to .78 to jump in front of another aircraft or take a short vector and slow to below .76 and follow. Knowing our fuel wasn't ideal I elected to slow and conserve fuel; 400 miles out. We monitored the fuel at every waypoint and the closer we got the more we realized we were going to be tight. We continued and as we got vectored for the approach I considered declaring MIN fuel with ATC; but right as I was going to we were cleared for the approach. Any further vectors and we would have been fuel critical. Upon touchdown we had 1;700 lbs total on board. Our reserve fuel was 1;358. Going through training on this aircraft we were told explicitly that you never want to land with less than 2;000 lbs of fuel on board. Dispatch planned us to land with 1;954. Let me be clear - this is not an issue I have with the individual Dispatcher involved but rather the system in place that is pushing Dispatchers to plan flights to land so extraordinarily low on fuel. Numerous phone calls with Dispatch have reinforced this. I sent an ACARS to our Dispatcher yesterday when we realized we had a problem and the response I got was 'I'm just following protocol'. The protocol is wrong and it needs to be addressed. We were 3 minutes of vectoring away from declaring an emergency; this on a perfectly clear VFR day. Weight was not an issue. Takeoff performance was not an issue. The only issue is the organizational pressure to dispatch flights with minimal fuel. Had we needed to go-around for any reason we would have landed with less than 1;000 lbs of fuel. The talk in the crew room these days is about how the company is dispatching our flights with so little fuel available and how the pilots are being pressured into accepting it whether they feel comfortable or not.We noticed this in cruise when we began monitoring fuel burn. This issue was caused by operations pressure [on] Dispatch to load flights with minimal fuel. We accepted the reality; slowed the aircraft to conserve fuel; and contemplated alternative action. Suggestions: stop this dangerous practice of dispatching flights with the bare minimum amount of fuel. It's a dangerous game to play and it's bound to backfire sooner or later.
Air carrier Captain reported concern about the airline's policy of dispatching flights with very low fuel reserve.