Dave Behnke

What 'the Company' wants is of no significance. What is driving the bus now are senior mgt people who have no sense of pride or ownership in FedEx coupled with greed fueled by bonuses that are paid out when certain metrics are met. Long, long gone are the days where you bag it out, go as fast as you can and get there early. Senior mgt is going to "cut our way to profitibility" while gutting the Company that everyone used to refer to as a verb. The handwriting has been on the wall for a while now and couldn't be more clear than when, in an effort to convince Captains to take less and less fuel, they sooth you with "We are willing to accept diversions to save fuel". You know who's NOT keen on diversions to save fuel? Customers who pay a premium for a premium product that will absolutely, positively get there overnight.

Grab what you can out the door, the future is most definitely not bright here...

YellowBanana

No airline willingly carries more fuel than needed if it’s conservatively managed, but I’ve never heard anyone at FDX in the training dept, DO, mismanagement, GOC, SCP, FCP, etc etc say they’d prefer a diversion over adding fuel. Who’s saying this?

Freighthumper

Exactly. I think the main point of fuel sense was to save fuel by getting rid of arbitrary this is the way we have always done it fuel mins. I've seen times where the crew had to add fuel and was very justified in doing so, but I haven't seen diversions get any more frequent either.

Some ting wong

He quoted "willing to accept diversions" because they are and that has been said. You probably just missed it as you were busy with indoc or not on property at the time. Of course, the company doesn't PREFER that we have airplanes diverting.

Idaho

I do not appreciate added stress of holding and diversion, no alternate, working longer hours and not being paid, less rest. Now there are more malfunctions and accidents due to poor manufacturing standards, poor maintenance, cutting corners on test flights, so there's that to worry about along with low fuel. The least they could do is pay us when duty goes longer, overtime would be fair yet even straight pay would be a massvie improvement. Why is a wage earner working longer for free? Guys would love the pay but still the inadequate FAR 121 rest would still become a problem at some point. Lots of guys here are terrified of having to speak to anyone above them so they wimp out on gas and pretty much anything else. Not a great characteristic of a good pilot, but effective way for the company to intimidate the sheeple here.

max8222

Divert if you have to and call in fatigued. Tell them you will go to the hotel and after a legal rest fly the plane to the original destination.

I wanted to add fuel because of a typhoon hitting same time as our arrival. I wanted enough gas to be able to hold for bands to go through and enough to get to alternate and not be sweating it. Dispatch was ok with it. FM emailed me about it wanted to know why I didn't burn any of it. I asked him if he looked at the weather when we were going to be there. No more questions

BlueMoon

They seriously emailed you asking why you added gas? That’s not right.

YellowBanana

Yeah, still. Carrying less fuel than conditions necessitate because one is “willing” to accept diversions sounds like one of those fish tales… If there’s any documentation that backs up this claim then, by all means, let’s see it. Otherwise, I’m calling this claim BS - nothing more than the twisted truth.

Also…when it’s all said and done…the parking brake doesn’t get dropped until the crew is satisfied with the fuel load. If a flight blocks out with fuel that the capt isn’t legitimately comfortable with then the blame stops right there. And shame on anyone that accepts this.

PW305

The fact that a manager felt compelled to email after a Captain and Dispatcher agreed to add fuel for a typhoon shows just how top-heavy and dysfunctional our flight operation is

Nordhavn

Call BS all you want because it is happening and it happened to me too. Captain wanted more fuel into Memphis due to enroute TS and dispatcher gave all kinds of push back. Finally, the Captain told the dispatcher that if he didn't the plane wouldn't move. Dispatcher acquiesced and we pressed on. The fact that you put the onus on the Captain with the parking brake is pretty weak brother. There is a conserted effort to cut costs here and no matter how much harrasment we get the onus, according to you, is on the Captain to not release the parking brake. There should be no push back if the addage is within reason. A blanket "no" is unacceptable Captain douche. Go back to the Air Force brother. Your way of thinking is f5cking stupid.