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Today a United Airlines 787 flight declared a Mayday upon arrival into Sydney due to low fuel.

What causes low fuel on a long haul flight?

You push back from LAX expecting 20 minutes taxi time. You’re late. You ask for taxi clearance and discover that there are fifty aircraft ahead of you. There goes another 90 minutes with both engines running. Fuel wasted

When you finally take off there is an aircraft bound for the same destination on the same route. You can’t get your ideal level and have to fly, for hours, at an uneconomical level. More fuel wasted.

The Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ) is particularly active as you go from the northern into the southern hemisphere. You spend an hour diverting, off track, to get around the thunderstorms. More fuel wasted.

The forecast headwinds are 30 knots … but you are seeing 60 to 80 kts. Grrr. More fuel wasted.

What Can You Do?

First thing to do is fly the aircraft at the most economical speed, and tell ATC you need to get an economical level ... now. If they won't let you fly at your desired speed or level, use the magical word "REQUIRE", which gets you VIP service.

Then check your destination weather, and if it’s OK, and you have two separate runways, consider committing-to-destination.

That means dropping your Alternate Airport. 

International flights arriving into Australia (except Qantas) have to have enough fuel to fly from their departure point to the destination, have a look, go-around, and then fly to a nominated alternate.

Qantas flights, inbound to Australia, do not have to carry an alternate due to a "grandfather clause". On a flight from Dubai to Sydney they got to carry 20 tonnes of fuel a day LESS than their partner airline leaving at the same time. But three times* Qantas have declared Maydays as un-forecast weather closed the runways and crews have had to conduct auto-lands on non-auto-land runways. Thankfully, those runways have now been upgraded. ( * Twice at PER and once at SYD)

Today

United probably had to drop their Alternate (most likely Brisbane or Melbourne) to ensure they could continue all the way, and their Ops Manual probably requires they call MAYDAY. (Ever since the Avianca Flight 52 crash in 1990 many airlines are nervous when it comes to low fuel situations).

Other airlines only require a PAN PAN PAN call.

If there was a real issue, United would have diverted into Auckland, New Caledonia, Fiji, or Brisbane, depending on their route.

Nothing to see here.


The ABC article is HERE



4th Oct 2018


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Tags: 787, United, Fuel