Allegiant Air Fuel Incident

TL: DR the thread.

I see that that the pilots told the tower that company had been trying to contact them for a while. I guess I just don't understand why they wouldn't have a backup plan in place? At my airline, as soon as we hear that we might not be able to land at our destination airport, we put together a backup plan that always includes the phrase "As soon as we hit XXXX lbs of fuel, we're diverting to ABC." On a LAS-FAR flight, you'd have Rapid City, Pierre, Aberdeen, Sioux Falls, Bismarck, Grand Forks, Jamestown...there are no shortage of airports that you could go to (even with company ops!) without forcing yourself into declaring an emergency.
 
BobDDuck said:
Finally, they are asking because, even on a VFR day, there may be important information in the ATIS (like taxiway closures) that would effect your approach and landing and taxi to the gate.
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Also because the first thing they do after you crash is check our cell phone/text records and find out if you had the ATIS. Just a CYA thing for us. It's annoying to us too, trust me.

ATC: Attention all aircraft, information Kilo current, wind XXX, altimeter XXXX.
Aircraft: Ground, XXX ready to taxi with Juliet.
ATC: o_O Advise when you have Kilo.
Aircraft: o_O

If the weather is good I just say Kilo is current, no significant change, wind X, altimeter X, taxi via XXX. I think there is some rule about if the WX is below a certain than they either need the current ATIS or we have to read the whole thing to them. Aw hellllll no! LOL
 
AM011309 said:
.

ATC: Attention all aircraft, information Kilo current, wind XXX, altimeter XXXX.
Aircraft: Ground, XXX ready to taxi with Juliet.
ATC: o_O Advise when you have Kilo.
Aircraft: o_O

If the weather is good I just say Kilo is current, no significant change, wind X, altimeter X, taxi via XXX. I think there is some rule about if the WX is below a certain than they either need the current ATIS or we have to read the whole thing to them. Aw hellllll no! LOL
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Have......the numbers.
 
Seggy said:
We need to change the thread title to....

"Two Allegiant Management Pilots attempt to go Flying"
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Dear God...here goes another LIKE. <click>



From the CVR transcript:

flyingfordummies-500x375.jpg


198498_10150442433965251_589045250_17636549_3314590_n.jpg
 
AM011309 said:
Also because the first thing they do after you crash is check our cell phone/text records and find out if you had the ATIS. Just a CYA thing for us. It's annoying to us too, trust me.

ATC: Attention all aircraft, information Kilo current, wind XXX, altimeter XXXX.
Aircraft: Ground, XXX ready to taxi with Juliet.
ATC: o_O Advise when you have Kilo.
Aircraft: o_O

If the weather is good I just say Kilo is current, no significant change, wind X, altimeter X, taxi via XXX. I think there is some rule about if the WX is below a certain than they either need the current ATIS or we have to read the whole thing to them. Aw hellllll no! LOL
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I'd prefer that over what happens down here in Mexico.

-Ground XXX with Kilo ready to taxi.
- Taxi via A, J, wind is blah blah altimeter is blah blah.

And btw they give a different altimeter to every aircraft depending, apparently, on what's a gauge reading whenever an a/c calls....
 
Luigi said:
At no point in there was I talking about using reserve fuel for "planned" burn. My only point is that in the air, fuel is fuel, as long as you never planned to use it in the original flight plan then you're in the clear.
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Having been to the "Big Brown Desk" at WHQ, with the FAA, the chief pilot, the entire cockpit crew and two ALPA representatives, trip-dropped, positive space with a paid hotel, if you roll up to the gate with 20 minutes of fuel onboard and a bored inspector looks into it, never discount the creativity of the Feds when it comes to personal interpretations of the FARs.

Yes it may technically be legal, but was it "prudent"? Personally, I'll take the most conservative interpretation.

Stories for over beer.
 
Minuteman said:
Does your Microsoft® Surface® Southernjest Edition™ E;FB not have a "mash finger in hot corner and jiggle charms to accept dispatch paperwork function?" How droll.

(laser printers are expensive, delicate flowers compared to the robust and economical impact printers of yore … the haunchy Midwestern hausfrau of airline IT, if you will)
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We have 'charms'.

But we have a script that will pull up the flight plan for us, but we're technically not legal to use it as a replacement for paper.

Laser printers are el cheapo. How we're still finding (and repairing) dot matrix printers has to be far more expensive.

Worlds largest fleet of McDonnell-Douglas products and Okidata printers! WOOT!
 
An article I read anonymously quoted an Allegiant pilot stating that if they ask for extra fuel, they essentially get bullied into accepting a lower amount. Is this typical in the 121 world? How do you deal with that as a flight crew?
 
uncreative said:
An article I read anonymously quoted an Allegiant pilot stating that if they ask for extra fuel, they essentially get bullied into accepting a lower amount. Is this typical in the 121 world? How do you deal with that as a flight crew?
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Depends.

For a period of time, when we would ask for extra fuel, there were a couple of dispatchers that would make snarky comments like "Captain demanded an extra 1000# at $x/gallon" but we got that rectified with catlike quickness.

At Skyway during our transition from 135 sched to 121, there was a dispatcher that wouldn't crosscheck his work and gave us like 400# to fly from MKE to IND. So the captain and I walked into the dispatch office (which was right next to our lounge) and asked, "Does this make sense?"

"Well, that's what the computer says".

"Does this make sense… to you?"

"I guess. What, are you requesting extra fuel?"
 
uncreative said:
An article I read anonymously quoted an Allegiant pilot stating that if they ask for extra fuel, they essentially get bullied into accepting a lower amount. Is this typical in the 121 world? How do you deal with that as a flight crew?
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It comes and goes to different levels at different properties. Also what is an "acceptable' amount of gas to land with varies from operations to operation and, of course, from pilot to pilot. At my old place I sometimes would have to spend a long time justifying why I wanted more gas. I ended up giving up on it one day and just landed in CMH instead of DTW when the numbers got tight. I never heard anything when I asked for more fuel (even if it involved bumping passengers) for the next 4 years I worked there. At my current shop, I've never seen a captain have to do anything more than just ask for gas. Granted we tend to fly around pretty fat on fuel so it's rare anybody asks.
 
Pretty funny

http://www.stockhouse.com/news/news...egal-a-round-up-today-s-dumbest-business-news


THE SUITS ARE IN THE COCKPIT, WE’RE ALL GOING TO DIE
Apparently it’s a thing at airlines that executives, to keep their pilots licenses, occasionally take a big ass plane out for a spin. Such was the case when an Allegiant Air (NASDAQ:ALGT, Forum) jet made an emergency landing in Fargo, North Dakota, complaining that they were running out of fuel.

The airport, which was temporarily closed for a US Navy Blue Angels practice, told the pilots in question, VP of Flight Operations Greg Baden and Director of Flight Michael Wuerger, to tell their story walking and move to the next airport.

The suits responded negatively to that request, apparently advising that they didn’t have enough fuel to get to the next airport along – something that isn’t supposed to happen according to federal rules, which require a flight to have enough fuel to get to the next strip, and 45 minutes more fuel on top of that.
Allegiant says the execs did nothing wrong, even though they now say the pilot meant “he had less than 20 minutes before dipping into his reserve’… which is akin to my kids telling me they’re really dizzy and can’t breathe because it’s so hot and maybe if we just got Slurpees… and then telling me we shouldn’t be at the ER because they just meant they were a bit hot and a sandwich would be fine.

Allegiant, unsurprisingly, is standing behind its executives. Because executives are never wrong, even when they cause an airport emergency and break federal aviation laws
 
uncreative said:
An article I read anonymously quoted an Allegiant pilot stating that if they ask for extra fuel, they essentially get bullied into accepting a lower amount. Is this typical in the 121 world? How do you deal with that as a flight crew?
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Last time I called to put a few extra hundred pounds of fuel on the destination went into a ground stop after we punished.

The only thing dispatch told me while we were coordinating the delay was "good call on adding the extra fuel."
 
uncreative said:
An article I read anonymously quoted an Allegiant pilot stating that if they ask for extra fuel, they essentially get bullied into accepting a lower amount. Is this typical in the 121 world? How do you deal with that as a flight crew?
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The Captain says something to the effect of "that's cute; the release fuel is now (whatever) plus (however many lb)".

The Captain remains the final authority.
 
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