[Infowarrior] - Pilots: Airlines Forcing Us To Fly Low On Fuel

[Richard Forno]

Pilots: To Cut Costs, Airlines Forcing Us To Fly Low On Fuel

JOAN LOWY | August 8, 2008 12:23 PM EST | AP

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/08/pilots-to-cut-costs-airli_n_117872.html

WASHINGTON — Pilots are complaining that their airline bosses,  
desperate to cut costs, are forcing them to fly uncomfortably low on  
fuel.

Safety for passengers and crews could be compromised, they say.

The situation got bad enough three years ago, even before the latest  
surge in fuel prices, that NASA sent a safety alert to federal  
aviation officials.

No action.

Since then, pilots, flight dispatchers and others have continued to  
sound off with their own warnings, yet the Federal Aviation  
Administration says there is no reason to order airlines to back off  
their effort to keep fuel loads to a minimum.

"We can't dabble in the business policies or the personnel policies of  
an airline," said FAA spokesman Les Dorr. He said there was no  
indication safety regulations were being violated.

The September 2005 safety alert was issued by NASA's confidential  
Aviation Safety Reporting System, which allows air crews to report  
safety problems without fear their names will be disclosed.

"What we found was that because they carried less fuel on the  
airplane, they were getting into situations where they had to tell air  
traffic control, 'I need to get on the ground,'" said Linda Connell,  
director of the NASA reporting system.
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With fuel prices now their biggest cost, airlines are aggressively  
enforcing new policies designed to reduce consumption.

In March, for example, an airline pilot told NASA he landed his  
regional jet with less fuel than required by FAA regulations. "Looking  
back," he said, "I would have liked more gas yesterday." He also  
complained that his airline was "ranking" captains according to who  
landed with the least amount.

A month earlier, a Boeing 747 captain reported running low on fuel  
after meeting strong headwinds crossing the Atlantic en route to John  
F. Kennedy International Airport in New York. He said he wanted to  
stop to add fuel but continued on to Kennedy after consulting his  
airline's operations manager, who told him there was adequate fuel  
aboard the jet.

When the plane arrived at Kennedy, the captain said it had so little  
fuel that had there been any delay in landing, "I would have had to  
declare a fuel emergency" _ a term that tells air traffic controllers  
a plane needs immediate priority to land.

The last major U.S. air crash attributed to low fuel was on Jan. 25,  
1990, when an Avianca Boeing 707 ran out while waiting to land at  
Kennedy. Seventy-three of 158 aboard were killed.

FAA regulations require airliners to take off with enough fuel to  
reach their destination or an alternate airport, plus another 45  
minutes of flight. The regulations also say it's up to dispatchers and  
pilots to decide the size of fuel loads, with pilots making the final  
call.

Spare fuel beyond the minimum required by FAA is often added to  
airliners to allow for weather or airport delays. That adds weight,  
which burns more fuel and increases a plane's operating cost. A  
Washington-to-Los Angeles flight by an Airbus 320 with 150 passengers  
burns about 29,500 pounds, or 4,300 gallons, of fuel. That costs about  
$14,600. Adding an additional 1,500 pounds, about 219 gallons, would  
cost about $750 more.

Complaints about airlines scrimping on fuel aren't limited to those  
submitted to the NASA system.

Labor unions at two major airlines _ American Airlines and US Airways  
_ have filed complaints with FAA, saying the airlines are pressuring  
members not to request spare fuel for flights.

American notified dispatchers on July 7 that their records on fuel  
approved for flights would be monitored, and dispatchers not abiding  
by company guidelines could ultimately be fired.

American said its fuel costs this year were expected to increase to  
$10 billion, a 52 percent over 2007. "The additional cost of carrying  
unnecessary fuel adversely affects American's financial success," the  
airline told dispatchers in a letter.

Union officials responded that "it appears safety has become a second  
thought" for the company.

At US Airways, the pilots' union took out an ad in USA Today on July  
16 charging that eight senior captains had been singled out by the  
company for requesting extra fuel and had been required to attend  
training sessions. The union said the training order was a message to  
other pilots not to request extra fuel.

American and US Airways blame the complaints on heated labor  
negotiations _ both are in contract talks with the complaining unions.

"It's not a safety issue; it's a contract issue," said John Hotard, a  
spokesman for American.

US Airways said in a statement to its employees that the eight  
captains had been adding fuel "well in excess of the norm."

FAA spokeswoman Laura Brown said the agency has conducted several  
analyses of airline fuel practices but found no instances of the  
minimum being violated or pilots' fuel requests being denied.

"We didn't see any proposed changes we thought needed to be made,"  
Brown said.

Department of Transportation Inspector General Calvin Scovel  
recommended in April that the FAA take a nationwide look at airline  
fuel practices. Five months later, the agency is still developing a  
survey to send to its inspectors at each airline and has no schedule  
for sending it out.

Scovel also said the number of pilots reporting low fuel on approach  
to Newark Liberty International Airport tripled from 2005 to 2007.  
More than half were Continental Airlines flights, the dominant carrier  
at Newark.

He suggested the airline was pressuring pilots "to either not stop for  
fuel when needed or to carry insufficient amounts of fuel." His letter  
cited two bulletins from Continental's management urging pilots and  
flight crews to cut back on fuel, including one that noted "adding  
fuel indiscriminately reduces profit sharing and possibly pension  
funding."

But Scovel's review of 20 Newark-bound flights _ out of 151 reporting  
low fuel on approach in 2007 _ found none with less than 45-minutes  
worth of spare fuel.

Former National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jim Hall said the  
situation merits an industrywide investigation by Scovel.

"It's a safety-of-flight issue and it needs to be treated as such,"  
said Hall, now a transportation safety consultant. "If dispatchers and  
pilots are saying the airlines are pressuring them, and it's having a  
chilling effect on the decisions they make every day in regard to the  
fuel loads, and it looks it's like eroding the authority of the pilot  
in command, then that issue needs the attention of the government  
regulators who are there to oversee the system."

___

Associated Press Writer David Koenig in Dallas contributed to this  
report.