Narrative:

On recent flight; I exercise my emergency authority after encountering a fuel emergency and needed an immediate landing. The fuel placed onboard the aircraft was at absolute legal minimum amounts. Upon arriving at the aircraft; fueling was already completed and truck has gone away. The flight began with an unfortunate maintenance issue as we discovered we had a continuous stuck mic issue that continued about 6-8 times in the flight; which was not the cause but an additional factor in the safety of the flight. As we passed our minimum diversion fuel level the weather in iah was 7 miles visibility; 4300 feet overcast; and there was no reason to think we would not make it into the airport. We were approaching iah from the east headed westbound. ATIS indicated iah was landing east and therefore when approach vectored us past the airport there was still no indication we would have a fuel issue since we were on the proper side of the field for landing.at this point ATC changed our arrival two more times; and gave us multiple vectors and even took us all the way to waypoint lammy then psx; both 100 miles outside our flight plan. Then vectoring us 100 miles west of the field farther away...this now far outside our flight plan burned all the extra fuel as well as the alternate fuel. Because weather in iah was still reporting VFR conditions. I still I remained optimistic as long as they turned us back to the field for an east landing we would still land with a safe amount of fuel. While still flying away from the field I received a new ATIS that said 10 miles vis and 6000 overcast; but now they were landing west and we were 100 miles on the wrong side of the field. At this point; I declared minimum fuel to ATC but my call was ignored. Due to high radio traffic [it] was hard to get in multiple calls. Second time I called minimum fuel; and needed to be turned 180 toward the airport. [Instead] I was given a 65 degree turn just to a make me happy; but still not any closer to the field and given a new fix bellr 60 miles farther from airport but then direct. As we got closer they gave us yet another vector away from the airport and I told them we were minimum fuel and we can't accept any more deviations. This call was again ignored and were given a handoff. When I checked in the new frequency I said; 'heading ... Request priority' and he responded with 'are you minimum fuel?' I said; yes; as I declared a long time ago and need priority handling.' I was again given a bogus vector nowhere nearer to iah. Our low fuel light is on now and I hear they are landing west yet we are still east of the airport. Knowing iah; I knew they were going to fly us past the airport again to get us on the east side and put us number 20 inline for landing west and we had nowhere near that fuel. The only way I could get iah attention and get any priority handling was to [confirm with ATC] yet ZHU still did not care to help me get into the airport and said 'you're better off going to hobby' at this point we finally got priority handling into hobby for a safe landing.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air carrier Captain reported reaching emergency fuel state after multiple vectors for arrival and runway changes at IAH.

Narrative: On recent flight; I exercise my emergency authority after encountering a fuel emergency and needed an immediate landing. The fuel placed onboard the aircraft was at absolute legal minimum amounts. Upon arriving at the aircraft; fueling was already completed and truck has gone away. The flight began with an unfortunate maintenance issue as we discovered we had a continuous stuck mic issue that continued about 6-8 times in the flight; which was not the cause but an additional factor in the safety of the flight. As we passed our minimum diversion fuel level the weather in IAH was 7 miles visibility; 4300 feet overcast; and there was no reason to think we would not make it into the airport. We were approaching IAH from the east headed westbound. ATIS indicated IAH was landing east and therefore when approach vectored us past the airport there was still no indication we would have a fuel issue since we were on the proper side of the field for landing.At this point ATC changed our arrival two more times; and gave us multiple vectors and even took us all the way to waypoint LAMMY then PSX; both 100 miles outside our flight plan. Then vectoring us 100 miles west of the field farther away...this now far outside our flight plan burned all the extra fuel as well as the alternate fuel. Because weather in IAH was still reporting VFR conditions. I still I remained optimistic as long as they turned us back to the field for an east Landing we would still land with a safe amount of fuel. While still flying away from the field I received a new ATIS that said 10 miles vis and 6000 overcast; BUT now they were landing west and we were 100 miles on the wrong side of the field. At this point; I declared minimum fuel to ATC but my call was ignored. Due to high radio traffic [it] was hard to get in multiple calls. Second time I called minimum fuel; and needed to be turned 180 toward the airport. [Instead] I was given a 65 degree turn just to a make me happy; but still not any closer to the field and given a new fix BELLR 60 miles farther from airport but then direct. As we got closer they gave us yet another vector away from the airport and I told them we were minimum fuel and we can't accept any more deviations. This call was again ignored and were given a handoff. When I checked in the new frequency I said; 'Heading ... Request priority' and he responded with 'are you minimum fuel?' I said; yes; as I declared a long time ago and need priority handling.' I was again given a bogus vector nowhere nearer to IAH. Our low fuel light is on now and I hear they are landing west yet we are still east of the airport. Knowing IAH; I knew they were going to fly us past the airport again to get us on the east side and put us number 20 inline for landing west and we had nowhere near that fuel. The only way I could get IAH attention and get any priority handling was to [confirm with ATC] yet ZHU still did not care to help me get into the airport and said 'you're better off going to Hobby' at this point we finally got priority handling into Hobby for a safe landing.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.