Airlines Cost Cutting on Fuel Quantity
 

FYI-

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24034468/

Fuel is not light. Flying with more fuel than needed to reach the destination is money straight down the crapper for them.

Thats why they are pilots and not engineers.

But the engineers are not meteorologists...

Even meteorologists are not meteorologists. Or at least not accurate ones

Some years ago one of the news shows had a story on an airliner that ran out of fuel in the middle of the Atlantic. I think they forgot to fill one tank. It managed to land at a military airstrip on an island.
Didn't a plane run out of fuel and crash while approaching JFK a few years ago?

But that will be a whole different story. If you forgot to fill a tank, no matter what you do, it won't help unless the filled tank has enough for that long a run

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_Transat_Flight_236

Not sure if this is the one you are referring to but in this instance it had to do with a fuel leak, not running out due to and insufficient fuel load at take of.

The JFK fuel exhaustion crash was Avianca flight 52
.
And of course there was the Gimli Glider.

It's an old story..........the airline wants minimum fuel and the pilot wants two hours of spare fuel.

Both of them are correct.

When the airline dispatches minimum fuel, it's the responsibility of the pilot to add more fuel if he determines that weather or ATC conditions will likely cause a delay in the arrival of the aircraft.

The pilot still has the final word..........without that additional fuel........he doesn't take the aircraft.

If this game gets played too close to the margins, a few diversions to alternate airports..........refuel..........and takeoff again will certainly offset the attempt to save 2500 lb. of fuel.