I was emailed a link to this Philadelphia Inquirer story that ran last Monday disputing the idea that U.S. Airways planes are flying on empty:
Later that day, I received a US Airways message to employees that put the pilots’ complaints into perspective by adding information about its aircraft-fueling practices.
Adding credibility to US Airways’ position, the union that represents its flight dispatchers called the pilots’ claims “nothing more than hot air.” Dispatchers, who, like pilots, are licensed by the FAA, are a critical but unsung part of flight planning. They share responsibility with the captain in deciding how much fuel to carry.
“I can say unequivocally that there has been absolutely no pressure on the dispatchers at US Airways to reduce the fuel loads,” Don Wright, president of the dispatchers’ Transport Workers Union local, said in a statement.
In US Airways’ message, the company said that while the FAA requires all airlines’ flights to arrive with 45 minutes of fuel left, “we use 60 minutes of arrival fuel as a minimum and currently average 100 minutes in actual operation.” The airline said that it found that the eight pilots called in for a meeting with the training department were “adding fuel to their dispatched fuel loads much more frequently than their peers.”
To the pilots, being called on the training department carpet feels like intimidation. To the company, as its message said, it was “entirely appropriate” to try to understand if the eight captains were experiencing something different from other pilots.
Another question is whether this isn’t a part of the long-running labor dispute between US Airways and its pilots. It’s putting it mildly to say many pilots are exasperated that the company and the union can’t reach an agreement on a new contract, almost three years after the America West merger.
As airlines try to save on fuel costs, there have been other reports of transatlantic jets of U.S. carriers landing with less than an adequate cushion of fuel. But none of the reports I know of concerned US Airways flights.
The article goes on to question the news media’s ability to accurately cover this event, particularly CNN’s Larry King Live.
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