Fuel Policy and Fuel Monitoring — Page 23, Lesson 38

I want to walk you through the EASA fuel policy breakdown. This is the foundation of how we plan every flight under European regulations, so let's take it piece by piece. Under EASA rules, the total fuel we carry is divided into several categories. The main groups are Taxi Fuel, Trip Fuel, and Reserves. The Reserves are then further broken down into Contingency Fuel, Alternate Fuel, Final Reserve Fuel, and Additional Fuel. On top of all that, we have Extra Fuel. Let's start with Taxi Fuel. This is the amount of fuel required to start up the engines, taxi the aircraft from the stand to the runway, and hold if necessary before take-off. It also includes any fuel needed to operate pre-flight services, such as cabin conditioning, and may include use of the APU — that's the Auxiliary Power Unit, a small turbine engine in the tail that provides electrical power and air conditioning on the ground. To give you a concrete example, in the Boeing 737, 260 kilograms of Taxi Fuel is allowed. That's over a quarter of a tonne of fuel burned before we even take off. Next is Trip Fuel. This is the fuel required for the actual flight from departure to destination. It includes several segments. First, fuel for the take-off from the airfield elevation, the departure procedure — that's the SID, or Standard Instrument Departure — and from there to the top of climb, abbreviated TOC, at the initial cruising level or altitude. Then, from the TOC to the top of descent, or TOD, including any step climbs or descents we might do during the cruise. Then from TOD to the point where the approach is initiated, taking into account expected arrival procedures — those are STARs, or Standard Terminal Arrival Routes. And finally, fuel for the approach and landing itself. Now, Reserve Fuel is subdivided into four categories, and we'll deal with each separately shortly. Those are Contingency Fuel, Alternate Fuel, Final Reserve Fuel, and Additional Fuel. Finally, we have Extra Fuel. This is any fuel above the minimums required by Taxi, Trip, and Reserve Fuel. It can simply be because more fuel has been uplifted than is required for the trip, so the surplus is defined as Extra Fuel. More usually, it can be because, even when all the minimums required by EASA fuel policy are carried, the aircraft commander — that's the captain — decides that more is needed because of particular circumstances. So Extra Fuel is discretionary, carried at the commander's discretion for operational or weather-related reasons. That's the high-level breakdown. We'll go into each of the reserve fuel components in detail next.