Poser765

but we always do have extra fuel! The dispatchers here fuel very liberally.

If it’s over 70 degrees on a turn it’s not coming off unless we are all coming off the airplane... which brings up another point.

Do you want me to leave the apu on during a quick turn with a crew swap? I will, but your butt needs to make its presence known. If I’m ready to take my bags off and you aren’t at the bottom of the jet bridge I’m turning off the apu. I’m not going on a quest to find you.

ShooterMcGavin

They got their hands slapped by Alpo for not following proper IJA protocol so now they have to run the entire reverse seniority list every time they junior person for trips. It's in the contract

TillerThriller

Anybody ever get the generic login to work for the id90 page listed on the ALPA app to work? not sure want our 3 letter IATA code is on there but trying to list for sun country on there and I setup an account but haven't received an activation email yet so..... thought I would try this before I just call or list at the airport

poorflyer

Pretty sure it's just CP. If you go to the website it lets you type in the airline name either way.

Edit: Also there isn't a generic listing you have to have your own account using your employee number.

poorflyer

Can any of you PHX folks give me a PM, I have a few questions.

cockpitcrumbs

FlytheSky

For the most part, I'm with you. I've had a few times where the dispatchers have been a little optimistic with taxi fuel and then give no hold fuel and then SEA center decides to make you do S turns across the state of Oregon at Mach 0.77 at FL240. Or going LAX-SFO and you get a lengthy wheels up time that you discover after you push and you can't shut down. I usually treat that extra taxi gas as a bit more contingency or hold fuel, but I've had times where I'm already below planned when the taxi ends up longer than planned (and yes, I single engine taxi every flight whenever possible).

I'm with you on leaving the APU running on turns. I also have zero problem firing it up if the airplane hasn't been fueled yet. I know that starting 50 lbs lower on fuel won't change what the fueler brings the airplane up to, so I might as well use it for passenger comfort.

If there's ground power at the gate, I'll glance up the jet bridge to see if anyone on the other crew is there before turning off the APU. If there's no ground power, I will go looking in the gate area for the other crew before we're done deplaning to see if anyone is there and ask one of them to come down so I can leave it on and set them up for success. Got to set up the next guy for success.

TillerTemptress

So call and get more fuel if you're doing LAX to SFO and the weather sucks in SFO. Or .. any high arrival volume time to SEA though really if you're doing S turns and you don't have the gas, tell them. Or go somewhere and shut both down, and you'll be burning all of 300 an hour on the APU. But I don't know why you'd leave the gate with less fuel than you want.... you're the one signing the release.

VIRotate

Speaking of APU, Finished a trip a few days ago and saw the plane was going to Texas in 52 minutes. Kept the APU running until the last pax was off. Went to the jetway and saw no crew. Okay I have a commute back east to catch. Turned off the APU and did secured the plane with the batts and emergency lights. As I’m taking my bags off the plane, CA pops in and said “Aww you shut down the APU?” I’m not going on a wild goose chase to look for the other crew. If you want the APU to stay running, get down a bit earlier. I have no problem leaving it running and even popping my head out to check but that’s about as far as I go. I just told the guy sorry I have a commute to catch and didn’t see anyone. Then I peaced out.

FlytheSky

I never leave the gate with less fuel than planned. And if it looks like I'm going to, I'll call the fueler back out. And as I mentioned, I always single engine taxi (unless the FOM specifically says not to). And 95% of the time there's no problem with the fuel plan in the real world. It's that 5% that can sometimes be a pain (and usually I'm terrible at guessing when it'll happen). I've had plenty of times when I thought there might be a delay and instead we get a shortcut and we land 800 lbs above planned.

Keep in mind that ever since I became the one signing for the release on flights I've operated, I've never landed below minimum fuel (or even terribly close to it). I'm one of those guys that if we're anything below planned my mind immediately starts forming plan B in case things go further outside of "planned" and it's difficult to bore my FO to death with stories when I'm coming up with that plan B.

My philosophy is that the dispatcher also shares joint responsibility for the flight and if things start looking dicey, I'll talk to them about other things, and if we divert, we divert (that's never happened to me either, at least for lack of fuel). And hypothetically, if I did divert for lack of fuel and for whatever reason some investigation was made into why we diverted for lack of fuel, I'd fully expect to have a dispatcher who is using good historical data about the fuel loads for that flight (that theu have access to that I don't) for why they planned the fuel the way they did.

My point is that if you are able to save some fuel at the gate by not running the APU the moment you set foot on the airplane (assuming there's ground power and the cabin is a comfortable temperature) I like to hold off on starting the APU until about D-15 or so. Otherwise, light that baby up! And if it's already running when I set foot on the plane after the last crew, I'm going to leave it running. No way I'm risking it not starting when I try to start it after shutting it down. Then the flight gets delayed and I look like an idiot. Not sure which one is worse.