Narrative:

Fuel on board at the gate was 100 lbs higher than the total ramp fuel required for the return trip to fll; so no fuel was purchased in departure airport. After loading the FMS at the gate in departure airport; efob over the destination runway showed 4.5. We didn't think too much of it since only climb winds were inserted and there was not enough time to load all the cruise and descent winds manually at the gate without taking a crew delay. Upon level off in cruise; I began plugging in the cruise and descent winds manually. Now our efob over the destination had dropped to 3.7. Doing further research; we looked at the flight plan and it showed our flight going from zbv direct to fll; with no STAR inserted into the fuel/time/distance calculations; even though the STAR was included in the ATC route that our dispatcher filed and we received from ATC. Our last waypoint on the flight plan; our landing airport; the dispatcher calculated that we would be descending; at 373 kts TAS. None of the STAR waypoints were taken into consideration during fuel/time/distance calculations; which resulted in our flight burning 1000 lbs more than what the dispatcher had planned. This left our flight with 0 extra fuel for holding; and we would have had to declare an emergency if we had to do a missed approach in fll. The dispatcher did not provide a realistic fuel burn. I recommend the airline invest in the software that allows the automatic uploading of winds aloft information directly into the FMS so accurate efob can be obtained at the gate; before departure.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A319 First Officer reported that planned fuel burns are being improperly calculated. Wants to be able to upload winds directly to the FMC to compare computed fuel over the destination with that formulated by the dispatcher.

Narrative: Fuel on board at the gate was 100 lbs higher than the total ramp fuel required for the return trip to FLL; so no fuel was purchased in departure airport. After loading the FMS at the gate in departure airport; EFOB over the destination runway showed 4.5. We didn't think too much of it since only climb winds were inserted and there was not enough time to load all the cruise and descent winds manually at the gate without taking a crew delay. Upon level off in cruise; I began plugging in the cruise and descent winds manually. Now our EFOB over the destination had dropped to 3.7. Doing further research; we looked at the flight plan and it showed our flight going from ZBV direct to FLL; with no STAR inserted into the fuel/time/distance calculations; even though the STAR was included in the ATC route that our Dispatcher filed and we received from ATC. Our last waypoint on the flight plan; our landing airport; the dispatcher calculated that we would be descending; at 373 Kts TAS. None of the STAR waypoints were taken into consideration during fuel/time/distance calculations; which resulted in our flight burning 1000 lbs more than what the Dispatcher had planned. This left our flight with 0 extra fuel for holding; and we would have had to declare an emergency if we had to do a missed approach in FLL. The dispatcher did not provide a realistic fuel burn. I recommend the airline invest in the software that allows the automatic uploading of winds aloft information directly into the FMS so accurate EFOB can be obtained at the gate; before departure.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.