Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Communication Breakdown; Confusion; Distraction; Workload; Troubleshooting
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Clearance; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue
Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; General Release Refused / Aircraft Not Accepted
Company Policy; Procedure
We were originally scheduled to fly flight non-stop to HNL; but due to strong enroute headwinds we were forced to make a tech stop in PDX. While still in the departure airport I attempted to complete all of my preflight planning for both legs of our day so that we could minimize our ground time in PDX. When I pulled the flight plan for the PDX-HNL leg; the filed routing was as follows: PDX..ONP..40129..ADTIL..BILLO.R464.BITTA..HNL. The first thing that caught my eye was the waypoint '40129' which I was unable to find on the FIR boundary; so I contacted our Dispatcher and asked for clarification of the location of this waypoint. After speaking with the Dispatcher I learned the waypoint in question was N4000.0W12900.0; or 40N29. I inquired as to whether he intended to file us over a waypoint that was not located along the FIR boundary and his response was that it was done that way to 'cut a corner around military airspace' for fuel savings. I also asked why the waypoint was depicted as it was on the paperwork rather than the more familiar depiction of '40N29' and his response was that sometimes the computer prints it that way. I also noticed that our flight plan was filed without an arrival into HNL; but I didn't give it a lot of thought since we were arriving much later than normal and my assumption was at the hour of our arrival that we would most likely be cleared direct to the HNL airport once HCF identified us on radar. I hung up with the Dispatcher and continued my preflight preparations. My next issue came up when I attempted to plot the ETP which was 'N4029.0W12905.5'on the plotting chart. Unfortunately when I attempted to plot the ETP; it came up approximately 20-30 miles east; or left of the plotted course line that connected ONP with 40N29. I once again called our Dispatcher and informed him of the problem I was having with the ETP not falling on the plotted course line and his response was that 'sometimes it does that'. Unable to resolve the issue at this point; I continued my preparations and my plan was to have my First Officer; who was already on the jet; review the paperwork with me in the event I was making an error in plotting. We got busy with other duties and decided we would further review the paperwork on the ground in PDX. After arriving in PDX and loading the FMC for our next leg to HNL; we were surprised to find that there were numerous errors when comparing the legs page of the FMC to the computer generated paper flight plan in our possession. One of the first things that caught my attention was that there was no consistency in the errors we were detecting. For example; on one leg segment the magnetic course was in error in excess of three degrees to the south when comparing the FMC legs page to the paper flight plan; and on the next segment it would be in error in excess of three degrees to the north of course. The worst error I recall us detecting was a difference in magnetic course of 7 degrees on one leg segment; while another leg segment had an error of 11 NM; but the magnetic courses were within tolerance of +/- 3 degrees. By now my First Officer had received our clearance via PDC on ACARS and that clearance was somewhat different from our filed route on the flight plan. The PDC clearance was as follows: 'KPDX ONP 4007N/12930W ADTIL./.PHNL'. Ironically when we entered the PDC cleared route into the FMC; nearly all of our errors disappeared; but we still had the issue of the ETP not falling on our plotted course line that connected ONP to 40N29. Since we were having the issues and errors that we were detecting; I contacted our Dispatcher and requested that he refile our flight plan with a fix that was located along the FIR boundary. After pulling the new flight plan; we eventually departed and had an uneventful flight to HNL. After thinking about all the issues and problems that we had; I'm suspicious that the company was doing everything in their power to manipulate the flight plan as muchas possible in order to achieve their desired fuel burn that would satisfy FAR's/policy and get us to HNL. If this was the case; unfortunately their manipulation of data in an attempt to reach a specific fuel burn resulted in substantial errors that we thankfully detected prior to pushback thanks to our policies and procedures that are in place. My suspicion is that the company attempted to manipulate flight planning data in order to achieve their desired outcome as far as fuel planning for our flight.
A Captain reported that during a fuel stop in PDX; a careful flight plan review exposed numerous Dispatcher flight planning errors in an apparent attempt to cut corners and save fuel. A new FAR compliant flight plan was issued.