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I have known former air traffic controllers that won't fly certain airlines because of a notorious habit some have for queue jumping by claiming they're low on

I have known former air traffic controllers that won't fly certain airlines because of a notorious habit some have for queue jumping by claiming they're low on fuel. If they are low on fuel is something else, but in any case when the ATCs have noticed a pattern then something is up. This situation sounds a lot less nefarious, but it does also sound like they should have rerouted earlier.

kpmcc 1y ago
Which airlines? I feel like if this is an issue we should be naming names.
- estebank 1y ago
  RyanAir is famously one of them. Edit: I was recalling articles claiming the company purposely fueling less than other airlines in order to increase their rate of claims for priority landing to have a better "on time" statistics. This forum post disputes that: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/38501/is-it-true-that-ryanair-flies-without-fuel-reserves https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/38501/is-it-tru...
  - PunchyHamster 1y ago
    also carrying less fuel does save on fuel usage
- fidotron 1y ago
  No way. Having attended meetings at ICAO I can also tell you many details of various aviation incidents, including their existence, are covered by some secret classification. This fact being disclosed caused most of the attendees to lose all hope in the rest of the proceedings. To their credit the FAA reps on that occasion were by far the most reasonable gov representatives in the room, and the FAA are one of the major voices pushing for greater transparency on it.
  - nradov 1y ago
    Which specific civil aviation incidents are covered by some secret classification?
    - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
      > Which specific civil aviation incidents are covered by some secret classification? You would have to have secret clearance to know which ones
      - nradov 1y ago
        It's cool, I have Top Secret Level 3 (Omega Sector) clearance so you can go ahead and tell me.
  - alwa 1y ago
    It’s generous of the classifying authority to send to the ICAO meeting somebody both appropriately credentialed to know about the information in question, and willing to talk coyly about it. Did these additional incidents inform the policy discussions at the meetings you attended?
    - fidotron 1y ago
      It's funny you say that, because the way it happened was it was blurted out by a diplomat from a certain country, at which point most of the regulators facepalmed and all of those of us from outside were having the same reaction as many here. The whole subject of discussion prior to this was efforts to improve data sharing wrt incidents.
jacquesm 1y ago
Claiming you're low when you are not is going to cause a major headache for the PIC, they're going to have to write that up and they may well be investigated. If it turns out they were lying they would likely find out that that is a career limiting move and if it happens too often then that too should result in consequences. The main reason is that your fake emergency may cause someone else to have a real one.
- ashdksnndck 1y ago
  What’s the mechanism for them to get caught?
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    Random spot checks. Every day at every airport some of these will get verified. Also, the next pilot would have to be willing to cover for you because they are going to have to falsify their records to make your trick invisible. You record the amount of fuel in the tank when you take command of the aircraft, the amount of fuel that was loaded and from that it is trivial to compute how much was left the last time it landed.
  - refulgentis 1y ago
    Lets say a plane crew claims low fuel. The pilot in charge has to file a writeup. When someone accepts the writeup, there's a random chance it's selected for followup. If/when they discover there was enough fuel, it will affect the career(s) of person(s) involved. First, generally, people don't like having to do paperwork, and especially don't like doing paperwork to help you land a little quicker. While one time may not be a fireable offense, you will find you career affected in the number of ways people can find to be uncooperative with you, or not support you when you attempt to advance your career within the company. Developing a habit would lead your interlocutors to escalate the situation, which would lead to discipline up to and including the company firing person(s) involved.
  - mlyle 1y ago
    When you declare a fuel emergency or even urgency, there's often follow up to figure out why (mechanical issue? problem with dispatch? problem with flying technique? exceptional weather condition that could be forecast better? etc). And there is plenty of data in aviation to know what happened. Dispatch knows how much fuel they say they put in. Your flight time, speeds, and profile are known. ACARS may be reporting fuel use throughout the flight. etc, etc, etc.
lenerdenator 1y ago
Kinda surprised there's no data link for that sort of telemetry so that you don't necessarily have to take the pilot's word for it.
- jjk7 1y ago
  Would that be more reliable than just ensuring there are consequences for lying?
  - lenerdenator 1y ago
    Perhaps. If the pilot knows that the ATC can see he's full of it, he might be less likely to lie. Those who still do can be grounded and be moved into management or take up a career in politics.
    - jacquesm 1y ago
      As a rule airline pilots don't lie about this stuff. They take safety pretty seriously.
    - mrguyorama 1y ago
      Putting a theory of "you shouldn't trust pilots" into ATC breaks the entire system. It is a system built out of very regulated parts, very professional people, and tight controls. Pilots are encouraged to be very forward and proactive about fuel situations because of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_052 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_052 Minimum fuel requirements are calculated as "Time of fuel for cruise to certain points", which is usually good enough, but if an Airport is stupid busy, or has bad wind patterns, just a couple go-arounds will chew through your fuel way faster than the regulation expects. Turbofan engines are also dramatically less efficient at low altitude than high altitude cruise. So holding at low altitudes because a congested airport is dealing with traffic will chew through your reserves much faster than you expect. Ryanair flies short hops to congested airports. They will have relatively low reserves, and you should expect them to run into "Hey we are low on fuel" more often than international flights for example.
nostrademons 1y ago
Since there's a lot of confusion in the comments below I'm going to hijack one of the top comments to make a couple points clear from the article and FlightRadar24 data: [1] They did reroute earlier. It was 2 failed attempts on Prestwick (Glasgow), 45 minutes in the landing pattern, then they diverted to Edinburgh (15 minute flight), a failed attempt at Edinburgh (~5-10 minutes), and then they diverted to Manchester (45 minute flight) and landed successfully there. Likely they hit their reserve just as the Edinburgh landing failed and decided to fly to Manchester, with clearer skies, rather than risk another failure in their reserve. IMHO the only questionable pilot decision here is to divert to Edinburgh rather than Manchester immediately. But this is somewhat understandable: first of all, dropping the passengers off at Edinburgh (an hour drive from Glasgow) is significantly less costly and less inconvenient than dropping them at Manchester (an overnight bus ride). Second, if the Edinburgh landing had been successful they would not have eaten into their reserve and no investigation would've been needed. Third, the Monday-morning quarterbacking could've easily gone the other direction if they had diverted to Manchester ("Why did you choose an airport 178 miles away and risk eating into your fuel reserve when Edinburgh was right there?") [1] https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/fr3418#3c7f91f4 https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/fr3418#3c7f91f4
- dboreham 1y ago
  Quick note that Preswick is not really Glasgow (35 miles away) and Glasgow has its own airport which presumably was also affected by the same weather so they couldn't divert to that. Between the Scottish lowlands (where they had already tried all the commercial airports) and anywhere else, Manchester is about the closest option.
  - allturtles 1y ago
    As someone totally ignorant of British airports, a Google maps search for "airports northern england" shows Teesside, Carlisle, and Newcastle all significantly closer to Edinburgh than Manchester. Are these not places where a 737 under emergency could land? Or was the weather also bad there?
inglor_cz 1y ago
"claiming they're low on fuel" It is almost fascinating how humans will stoop to dishonesty even in banal situations - and not just any humans, but pilots, who should be subject to at least some vetting. Maybe planes should be retrofitted as to transmit their actual fuel state including a qualified assessment in minutes to the ATC. Not just because of the cheaters, but also to warn the ATC in the rare case that some plane crew isn't very assertive about their dwindling fuel, or hasn't noticed the problem. It would make prioritizing the queue a bit more neutral. If I designed such a system from scratch, "remaining fuel" would be part of my telemetry.
- sebzim4500 1y ago
  >If I designed such a system from scratch, "remaining fuel" would be part of my telemetry. Careful what you wish for. I'd rather people skip the queue by pretending to be low on fuel than people skip the queue by actually being low on fuel.
  - inglor_cz 1y ago
    You mean that ATC would abuse their position by making planes circle as long as they have some fuel left?
    - sebzim4500 1y ago
      No I mean people would take off with less fuel so that by the time they reach their destination they could skip the queue
      - inglor_cz 1y ago
        This is provable, though (there are regulations that say how much fuel you must have at takeoff - enough to divert comfortably to a suitable airport + some reserve for circling), and could be heavily punished. Up to the withdrawal of necessary licences.
kmeisthax 1y ago
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kpmcc 1y ago

Which airlines? I feel like if this is an issue we should be naming names.

estebank 1y ago
RyanAir is famously one of them. Edit: I was recalling articles claiming the company purposely fueling less than other airlines in order to increase their rate of claims for priority landing to have a better "on time" statistics. This forum post disputes that: https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/38501/is-it-true-that-ryanair-flies-without-fuel-reserves https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/38501/is-it-tru...
- PunchyHamster 1y ago
  also carrying less fuel does save on fuel usage
fidotron 1y ago
No way. Having attended meetings at ICAO I can also tell you many details of various aviation incidents, including their existence, are covered by some secret classification. This fact being disclosed caused most of the attendees to lose all hope in the rest of the proceedings. To their credit the FAA reps on that occasion were by far the most reasonable gov representatives in the room, and the FAA are one of the major voices pushing for greater transparency on it.
- nradov 1y ago
  Which specific civil aviation incidents are covered by some secret classification?
  - SJC_Hacker 1y ago
    > Which specific civil aviation incidents are covered by some secret classification? You would have to have secret clearance to know which ones
    - nradov 1y ago
      It's cool, I have Top Secret Level 3 (Omega Sector) clearance so you can go ahead and tell me.
- alwa 1y ago
  It’s generous of the classifying authority to send to the ICAO meeting somebody both appropriately credentialed to know about the information in question, and willing to talk coyly about it. Did these additional incidents inform the policy discussions at the meetings you attended?
  - fidotron 1y ago
    It's funny you say that, because the way it happened was it was blurted out by a diplomat from a certain country, at which point most of the regulators facepalmed and all of those of us from outside were having the same reaction as many here. The whole subject of discussion prior to this was efforts to improve data sharing wrt incidents.

jacquesm 1y ago

Claiming you're low when you are not is going to cause a major headache for the PIC, they're going to have to write that up and they may well be investigated. If it turns out they were lying they would likely find out that that is a career limiting move and if it happens too often then that too should result in consequences. The main reason is that your fake emergency may cause someone else to have a real one.

ashdksnndck 1y ago
What’s the mechanism for them to get caught?
- jacquesm 1y ago
  Random spot checks. Every day at every airport some of these will get verified. Also, the next pilot would have to be willing to cover for you because they are going to have to falsify their records to make your trick invisible. You record the amount of fuel in the tank when you take command of the aircraft, the amount of fuel that was loaded and from that it is trivial to compute how much was left the last time it landed.
- refulgentis 1y ago
  Lets say a plane crew claims low fuel. The pilot in charge has to file a writeup. When someone accepts the writeup, there's a random chance it's selected for followup. If/when they discover there was enough fuel, it will affect the career(s) of person(s) involved. First, generally, people don't like having to do paperwork, and especially don't like doing paperwork to help you land a little quicker. While one time may not be a fireable offense, you will find you career affected in the number of ways people can find to be uncooperative with you, or not support you when you attempt to advance your career within the company. Developing a habit would lead your interlocutors to escalate the situation, which would lead to discipline up to and including the company firing person(s) involved.
- mlyle 1y ago
  When you declare a fuel emergency or even urgency, there's often follow up to figure out why (mechanical issue? problem with dispatch? problem with flying technique? exceptional weather condition that could be forecast better? etc). And there is plenty of data in aviation to know what happened. Dispatch knows how much fuel they say they put in. Your flight time, speeds, and profile are known. ACARS may be reporting fuel use throughout the flight. etc, etc, etc.

lenerdenator 1y ago

Kinda surprised there's no data link for that sort of telemetry so that you don't necessarily have to take the pilot's word for it.

jjk7 1y ago
Would that be more reliable than just ensuring there are consequences for lying?
- lenerdenator 1y ago
  Perhaps. If the pilot knows that the ATC can see he's full of it, he might be less likely to lie. Those who still do can be grounded and be moved into management or take up a career in politics.
  - jacquesm 1y ago
    As a rule airline pilots don't lie about this stuff. They take safety pretty seriously.
  - mrguyorama 1y ago
    Putting a theory of "you shouldn't trust pilots" into ATC breaks the entire system. It is a system built out of very regulated parts, very professional people, and tight controls. Pilots are encouraged to be very forward and proactive about fuel situations because of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_052 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avianca_Flight_052 Minimum fuel requirements are calculated as "Time of fuel for cruise to certain points", which is usually good enough, but if an Airport is stupid busy, or has bad wind patterns, just a couple go-arounds will chew through your fuel way faster than the regulation expects. Turbofan engines are also dramatically less efficient at low altitude than high altitude cruise. So holding at low altitudes because a congested airport is dealing with traffic will chew through your reserves much faster than you expect. Ryanair flies short hops to congested airports. They will have relatively low reserves, and you should expect them to run into "Hey we are low on fuel" more often than international flights for example.

nostrademons 1y ago

Since there's a lot of confusion in the comments below I'm going to hijack one of the top comments to make a couple points clear from the article and FlightRadar24 data: [1] They did reroute earlier. It was 2 failed attempts on Prestwick (Glasgow), 45 minutes in the landing pattern, then they diverted to Edinburgh (15 minute flight), a failed attempt at Edinburgh (~5-10 minutes), and then they diverted to Manchester (45 minute flight) and landed successfully there. Likely they hit their reserve just as the Edinburgh landing failed and decided to fly to Manchester, with clearer skies, rather than risk another failure in their reserve. IMHO the only questionable pilot decision here is to divert to Edinburgh rather than Manchester immediately. But this is somewhat understandable: first of all, dropping the passengers off at Edinburgh (an hour drive from Glasgow) is significantly less costly and less inconvenient than dropping them at Manchester (an overnight bus ride). Second, if the Edinburgh landing had been successful they would not have eaten into their reserve and no investigation would've been needed. Third, the Monday-morning quarterbacking could've easily gone the other direction if they had diverted to Manchester ("Why did you choose an airport 178 miles away and risk eating into your fuel reserve when Edinburgh was right there?") [1] https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/fr3418#3c7f91f4 https://www.flightradar24.com/data/flights/fr3418#3c7f91f4

dboreham 1y ago
Quick note that Preswick is not really Glasgow (35 miles away) and Glasgow has its own airport which presumably was also affected by the same weather so they couldn't divert to that. Between the Scottish lowlands (where they had already tried all the commercial airports) and anywhere else, Manchester is about the closest option.
- allturtles 1y ago
  As someone totally ignorant of British airports, a Google maps search for "airports northern england" shows Teesside, Carlisle, and Newcastle all significantly closer to Edinburgh than Manchester. Are these not places where a 737 under emergency could land? Or was the weather also bad there?

inglor_cz 1y ago

"claiming they're low on fuel" It is almost fascinating how humans will stoop to dishonesty even in banal situations - and not just any humans, but pilots, who should be subject to at least some vetting. Maybe planes should be retrofitted as to transmit their actual fuel state including a qualified assessment in minutes to the ATC. Not just because of the cheaters, but also to warn the ATC in the rare case that some plane crew isn't very assertive about their dwindling fuel, or hasn't noticed the problem. It would make prioritizing the queue a bit more neutral. If I designed such a system from scratch, "remaining fuel" would be part of my telemetry.

sebzim4500 1y ago
>If I designed such a system from scratch, "remaining fuel" would be part of my telemetry. Careful what you wish for. I'd rather people skip the queue by pretending to be low on fuel than people skip the queue by actually being low on fuel.
- inglor_cz 1y ago
  You mean that ATC would abuse their position by making planes circle as long as they have some fuel left?
  - sebzim4500 1y ago
    No I mean people would take off with less fuel so that by the time they reach their destination they could skip the queue
    - inglor_cz 1y ago
      This is provable, though (there are regulations that say how much fuel you must have at takeoff - enough to divert comfortably to a suitable airport + some reserve for circling), and could be heavily punished. Up to the withdrawal of necessary licences.

kmeisthax 1y ago

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