Airline pre-flight preparation

For Airlines to operate aircraft requires an Air Operator Certificate issued by a civil aviation regulatory authority. To secure that certificate an airline documents policies and procedures that demonstrate compliance with Civil Aviation Rules and/or Regulations.

One of these policies is the airline fuel policy which is an important element that influences fuel conservation and therefore emission reduction. In principle any fuel conscious policy should minimise the fuel that an aircraft carries on fine weather days at the destination and allow for more fuel on days where a diversion to an alternate airport is a possibility. In Air New Zealand we believe we have achieved the correct balance between fuel conservation and a safe operation.

Other factors that influence fuel burn within an airlines control include:

• Having a modern computer flight planning system combined with on board aircraft systems that can accept an uplink of flight plan, enroute wind and temperature data into the aircraft Flight Management Computer (FMC).
  
• Maintenance practises that minimise the aircraft fuel burn as the aircraft ages. The affect, known as Performance Deterioration Allowance, is monitored in Air NZ on every flight and adjusted weekly for each aircraft within the Flight Planning Computer system.
• Systems that manage the aircraft weight from the initial specifications of seats, carpets and aircraft galleys through to the potable water loads, catering and magazines. Clearly there is always a balance between what we believe is valued by the customer and the desire to save weight.

Every 6 hours an updated set of worldwide wind and temperature forecasts is received by the flight planning system. The latest available information is used by the Flight Despatch Officer to create a flight plan which is compliant with Air New Zealand’s fuel policy, ETOPs rules, available NOTAMS and enroute airfield Terminal forecasts (TAFs). Where possible this will utilise User Preferred Routes (refer to the Enroute Cruise phase) and will provide the flight crew with the among other things the minimum fuel load required for the flight.

 

 

Flight Phase Information

Aircraft Situation Display