deltabobo
Wingman Extraordinaire!
Yes and No...
DL has put themselves into an advantageous position with their purchase of the oil refinery. What is price of a barrel of Jet-A these days? $280/barrel. Pure oil goes for $100/barrel. DL, namely Ed Bastian & Richard Anderson, have insisted that if you control the the majority factor of fuel cost, which is refining from pure crude to Jet-A, you can control your costs more effectively. Granted, the airlines today are not as lucky as WN was with the hedges, but they're close. Just because you have an ability to control your fuel costs doesn't give you a reason to top off the ole' 767 or 777. Keeping your costs down while revenue streams in = record breaking profits (which DL had last year, and is on target for another record-breaking year again in 2014).
With someone who is personal friends with several people inside the DL OCC, I can say that they do allow extra fuel, but they also conduct fuel audits on every dispatcher. If they notice a trend on a certain dispatcher on why they are adding extra fuel as a habit, they'll look for a way to remedy it. Sometimes a little extra fuel is good; it can save you from a costly diversion and place a hiccup into a tightly knit schedule. If the dispatcher adds extra fuel because they "feel" that the WX is trending downwards, DL dispatcher's can utilize their own resource: DL Meteorology (or actually NW Meteorology). NW was legendary with their WX Dept because they were the only carrier out there that actually plotted areas of turbulence. Very highly accurate to the point that NOAA/NWS asks them for their input when writing forecasts.
Enough with my pro-DL rant.
Good night & Good Luck.
