Narrative:

1. Flight plan offered direct. No destination airport arrival and path in outbound flow that never works. Questioned dispatcher; he knew nothing of the 6.9 burn on the arrival descent being deficient per many of my experiences and north to south routing normally being declined by the TRACON. One is normally sent to north for arrival out of departure path northbound. 2. Told dispatcher it looked like 18-21K fuel at destination possibly; not computer flight plan lies of 26K. Incorrect arrival fuel and turbulence deviations in foreign airspace will eat gas. Accepted dispatch computer flight plan and payload with reservations of likely divert due to arrival TRACON ATC ignoring all precautions on dispatch trying to put the computer flight plan jeanie back into the bottle again. Declared we will accept zero turns; reroutes or delays; we likely will declare minimum fuel and will have no time for round-table hand holding meeting on this matter as it will happen in the destination inbound segment in the high pilot workload. Dispatcher does a nice dispatch job; but is given poor tools to work with and obviously no data on past descent operations. 3. Hours of turbulence in foreign airspace yield additional fuel burn from deviations and wing reactions with higher thrust levels required to address turbulence loading; all ignored in flight planning from dispatch. ATC denied computer flight plan altitudes; notified dispatch of denials; additional burn and turbulence; typical operations in foreign airspace when we do not go oceanic. 4. Dispatcher did massive workload job of advising enroute domestic ATC centers of fuel issues; all ignored. After he had to redo it again; all ignored by TRACON ATC; as always; tactical consumer advocate; shift managers; sector controllers et all; all ignored my dispatcher as the ATC always does in this matter while exposing pilot and dispatcher licenses to enforcement action and inflight stress of fuel going away far above flight plan. 5. Well below computer flight plan fob at one re-dispatch point about 5K; accepted lower fuel at 95.0 re dispatch fuel vs. Computer flight plan 99+ and discussed with crew landing 18-21K fuel after weather review. 6. Overhead the arrival start point we were given turn to the north; refused; declare minimum fuel; altitude far below computer flight plan; approach sent us to runway 28 on a vector at about 11;000 ft. 7. Fun with arrival TRACON ATC begins; burn near 7K from start of the arrival to destination vs. Computer flight plan about 6.9 from north of much further out on the flight plan. Simply following the ATC instructions that should be built into the computer flight plan. 8. After 32 years of keeping track of descent fuel use to monitor ATC there is absolutely no improvement in FAA and ATC performance. Computer flight plan is ignoring this and imposing stress on the crew and dispatcher who are the certificate holders for safety and subject to violations. People in the company pay for this fuel and ATC does zero; even on a saturday with reduced traffic we get bad information at our destination after being told 'all is well.' 9. Massive dispatch manpower wasted; company fuel wasted; my stress increased; reduced sleep as I need to be on flight deck early; 3 hours sleep for the night. 10. Next time the divert starts early in a center further out; not waiting until the destination TRACON and ATC center lies put the stress back on me after a 14 + hour trip and 3 hours sleep overnight trying to haul the goods home and fulfill FAA assigned duties. 11. Computer flight plan solves nothing in about 20 areas of past multi-decade safety problems identified in previous report; notes to management and discussion with FAA and pacific region officials; a real garbage product presented to the crew and dispatcher. 12. All issues discussed with an FAA representative and company manager. 13. Landed 17.0 fuel; flight plan said 26;015; just following ATC instructions; typical. Related all issues to my dispatch for distribution to the previous dispatcher; both good dispatchers working with trash computer flight plan products like me.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Captain reported that his company continues to employ a new computer flight planning software package which does not accurately predict trip fuel burns or the need for inflight turbulence deviations and causes excess stress on pilots and dispatchers responsible for each flight's safely.

Narrative: 1. Flight plan offered direct. No destination airport arrival and path in outbound flow that never works. Questioned Dispatcher; he knew nothing of the 6.9 burn on the arrival descent being deficient per many of my experiences and north to south routing normally being declined by the TRACON. One is normally sent to north for arrival out of departure path northbound. 2. Told Dispatcher it looked like 18-21K fuel at destination possibly; not computer flight plan lies of 26K. Incorrect arrival fuel and turbulence deviations in foreign airspace will eat gas. Accepted dispatch computer flight plan and payload with reservations of likely divert due to arrival TRACON ATC ignoring all precautions on dispatch trying to put the computer flight plan Jeanie back into the bottle again. Declared we will accept zero turns; reroutes or delays; we likely will declare minimum fuel and will have no time for round-table hand holding meeting on this matter as it will happen in the destination inbound segment in the high pilot workload. Dispatcher does a nice dispatch job; but is given poor tools to work with and obviously no data on past descent operations. 3. Hours of turbulence in foreign airspace yield additional fuel burn from deviations and wing reactions with higher thrust levels required to address turbulence loading; all ignored in flight planning from dispatch. ATC denied computer flight plan altitudes; notified Dispatch of denials; additional burn and turbulence; typical operations in foreign airspace when we do not go oceanic. 4. Dispatcher did massive workload job of advising enroute domestic ATC centers of fuel issues; all ignored. After he had to redo it again; all ignored by TRACON ATC; as always; tactical Consumer Advocate; Shift Managers; Sector Controllers et all; all ignored my Dispatcher as the ATC always does in this matter while exposing pilot and Dispatcher licenses to enforcement action and inflight stress of fuel going away far above flight plan. 5. Well below computer flight plan FOB at one re-dispatch point about 5K; accepted lower fuel at 95.0 re dispatch fuel vs. computer flight plan 99+ and discussed with crew landing 18-21K fuel after weather review. 6. Overhead the arrival start point we were given turn to the north; refused; declare minimum fuel; altitude far below computer flight plan; approach sent us to Runway 28 on a vector at about 11;000 FT. 7. Fun with arrival TRACON ATC begins; burn near 7K from start of the arrival to destination vs. computer flight plan about 6.9 from north of much further out on the flight plan. Simply following the ATC instructions that should be built into the computer flight plan. 8. After 32 years of keeping track of descent fuel use to monitor ATC there is absolutely no improvement in FAA and ATC performance. Computer flight plan is ignoring this and imposing stress on the crew and Dispatcher who are the certificate holders for safety and subject to violations. People in the company pay for this fuel and ATC does zero; even on a Saturday with reduced traffic we get bad information at our destination after being told 'all is well.' 9. Massive dispatch manpower wasted; company fuel wasted; my stress increased; reduced sleep as I need to be on flight deck early; 3 hours sleep for the night. 10. Next time the divert starts early in a center further out; not waiting until the destination TRACON and ATC Center lies put the stress back on me after a 14 + hour trip and 3 hours sleep overnight trying to haul the goods home and fulfill FAA assigned duties. 11. Computer flight plan solves nothing in about 20 areas of past multi-decade safety problems identified in previous report; notes to management and discussion with FAA and Pacific region officials; a real garbage product presented to the crew and dispatcher. 12. All issues discussed with an FAA representative and company Manager. 13. Landed 17.0 fuel; flight plan said 26;015; just following ATC instructions; typical. Related all issues to my Dispatch for distribution to the previous Dispatcher; both good dispatchers working with trash computer flight plan products like me.

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.