2011-10 · NASA ASRS report 975391
An Air Carrier crew declared minimum fuel on a approach because Dispatch's computers could not be programmed for arrival altitude constraint's and runway changes which required more fuel than basic planning permitted.
Insufficient fuel was planned for LGA flight. Dispatch told us the computers were unable to plan the STARs with the proper crossing altitudes. On the Milton arrival we are to cross MARRC Intersection at FL180 (or other usable FL). The computer flight plan showed us crossing MARRC at FL350 (our cruise altitude). When the crossing restriction of FL180 was entered the new fuel numbers showed us burning 400 LBS more gas. Additionally; only 233 LBS was given for the approach. LGA was landing Runway 22 and thus more fuel was needed. Dispatch ran the numbers several times and they showed us with a FOD of 3;500 LBS. The computer showed us landing with 2;300 LBS. We declared minimum fuel and were given priority handling. We landed with just over 2;700 LBS. We also climbed 2;000 FT higher than planned; flew the ECON speeds; and got a large shortcut. If you're going to be stingy with the fuel; make sure the planning is right. The Dispatchers need to plug in the crossing restrictions for the arrivals. They also need to look at the forecast winds and give an estimated guess on what runway we will be landing on and plan accordingly.
The fuel numbers from our MCDU showed us landing with 2;300 LBS of fuel. We slowed from .74; the planned speed; to .71. We notified Dispatch of our fuel load. They ran numbers for us several times; but the numbers were very different from what we were showing. Dispatch's numbers did not include the decent from FL350 to cross MARCC at FL190. Also their numbers only gave 233 LBS for the approach; a very low number. We contacted Dispatch for further fuel questions. Their advice was to declare minimum fuel and have LGA give us a different runway than was in use. We landed with 2;700 LBS. We did declare minimum fuel. We need more fuel. Also the fuel burn numbers on the release were very far off. The winds aloft were not as strong as planned. Dispatch should not give suggestions asking to land on a different runway in LGA. That was not helpful.
Source: NASA Aviation Safety Reporting System (public domain). Reports are voluntary submissions and are not verified by NASA.
Loading the flight search…
Pick an aircraft model — Boeing 737, Airbus A320, A380, Boeing 787 Dreamliner and more — enter your origin airport, and FlightFinder shows every route that plane flies from there with live fares.
We support Boeing 737/747/757/767/777/787, the full Airbus A220/A319/A320/A321/A330/A340/A350/A380 family, Embraer E170/E175/E190/E195, Bombardier CRJ and Dash 8, and the ATR 42/72 turboprops.
Search and schedules are free. Pro ($4.99/month, $39/year, or $99 one-time lifetime) unlocks the enriched flight card — on-time stats, CO₂ per passenger, amenities, live gate & weather — plus My Trips with push alerts.
Live schedules come from Amadeus, AeroDataBox and Travelpayouts. Observed routes (which aircraft actually flew a given city pair) are crowdsourced from adsb.lol ADS-B data under the Open Database License.