Qantas pilots are having a tussle with the company over what they claim is pressure on junior captains to load less “discretionary” fuel above what it sees as “normal” fuel for whatever route they are about to fly.

But this is NOT about claims that Qantas is eroding flight safety.

It is about Qantas loading less fuel for contingencies such as bad tropical storms or adverse headwinds, and making its passengers wear a higher risk of in-flight diversions.

According to members of the Australian & International Pilots Association, diverting more passengers into the cactus somewhere, causing them to  miss their appointments or connections, will put Qantas ahead because of reduced spending on the discretionary top-up fuel that allows pilots to avoid unscheduled refuelling stops.

In its current newsletter to members, AIPA says:

The broad-brush policy adopted by Qantas management regarding fuel carriage does not take into account the unique characteristics of individual destinations. For example, the requirements when operating into a single runway non-controlled destination where there is heavy training traffic are entirely different from those when operating into a multi runway-controlled destination.

The fuel decision is made by considering a number of factors and the final order is determined not just by the legal requirements, but by airmanship requirements as well. In the end it may well be the decisions of others that get you into trouble, so why put another hole in the Swiss cheese that doesn’t need to be there?

The AIPA bulletin also sets out the regulatory obligations that make Qantas pilots, not the company, liable for loading sufficient fixed and discretionary quantities of  fuel to meet a strict set of conditions on reserves, which must allow for diversions caused by route conditions or technical problems.

A Qantas pilot said this morning: “Junior pilots are contacting the association about pressure to load less discretionary fuel, for example, being approached over a flight on which they took on board an extra 2000 kilograms and landed with 1100 kilograms of that still in the tanks.

“Extra fuel does cost more to load and carry. But it results in better on-time performance, and it avoids pilots being confronted with embarrassing delays or undesirable detours.”

The pilot, who captains on Qantas Airbus A380s, said the company was also encouraging those piloting the big jet to carry more not less discretionary fuel on flights from London to Singapore because it was conscious of the media attention given to diversions by its flagship. He quoted an instance where thunderstorms closed Singapore’s Changi Airport and caused an A380 diversion to Kuala Lumpur, where ground handling unfamiliarity with the type saw what should have been a tech stop of less than an hour turn into a four-hour delay.

He said Qantas is clearly aiming at spending less money, in the case of the A380, by coming out in favour of maximal discretionary fuel over very long distances, but brow-beating captains flying shorter distances into carrying as little as possible in order to get a net benefit, at the cost of customer satisfaction.

The pilot said a recent IATA proposal to change international fuel rules to reduce the average discretionary fuel loading from 10% of “fixed” fuel needs to 2% quickly fell out of favour at Qantas when it read the fine print, which imposed much tougher requirements on fuel for diversions to remote airports.

“This is good for most carriers in the northern hemisphere who can divert to a huge range of easily reached airports over most of their operations. However, Qantas can’t get those proposed savings crossing the Pacific and Indian oceans because they are conditional in part on the availability of alternative airports with two differently oriented runways each with an instrument approach landing system, and there aren’t any,” he said.

Qantas was nonplussed by the AIPA newsletter, as it is bound by the very rules it had quoted to recognise that the final say in fuel loads was always the captain’s.

A spokesperson said: “We strongly refute any suggestion that Qantas management applies any pressure to pilots with regard to discretionary fuel decisions, whatever sector or airport is involved.”