Airline running out of gas

There are combinations (lots of weight, hot weather at takeoff, need to divert, late takeoff so fuel time is limited) that require not filling up all the way.

There was at least one crash (Avianca 52 in 1990) because the pilot did not declare an emergency in NYC and ran out of fuel. Others are listed at en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_starvation. However, nearly all fuel problems are taken care of well before a real problem exists and you should not worry about that.

There's a lot of misunderstood talk about lightloading. Pilots love to carry fuel. It's like a safety blanket. And fuel handlers used to add extra as well. But it costs money to carry extra fuel. Not just in the direct cost, but a heavier plane burns more fuel.

So, Airlines have turned to the computer to figure out not only how much it needs to get to its destination but enough to get to its alternate airport should something come up that doesn't allow it to land at its planned destination (like you experienced.) The FAA is strict about this.

Either way, there would be at least a 45 minute reserve past the fuel needed to get to its destination.

Airlines of other countries can do what they want as long as they don't fly to the U.S>

In the Avianca crash, bad weather caused the flight to go into a holding pattern. Had the pilot declared low fuel, he would have been immediately directed to land ahead of others. Pilot error for not reporting.

What may have happened was that your plane was put into a holding pattern over southern Virginia and your pilot may have declared low fuel. Rather than break up the backlog of planes to bring yours in, ATC instructed him to land an Norfolk, get fuel, and then when they were ready for him, take off and go to IAD.

It is more likely that your luggage would be left off an overloaded plane than fuel. Afterall, the airline would at most have to give you a few hundred bucks for your luggage. A jumbo jet cost tens of millions of dollars.

One last thing, if the pilot felt he was low on fuel,he would have landed way before. The air route from Rome to IAD goes over the North Atlantic. Plenty of places to land in Canada and the northeast.

FAA regs require all airline flights in the U.S. to carry enough fuel to reach the destination, plus 45 minutes of fuel to reach an alternate destination and I believe and additional 45 minutes beyond that. I used to be an instrument-rated commercial pilot 30 years ago but and I can't quite remember the rule on fuel but I'll guarantee you that your airliner was not out of, or low, on fuel.

Airlines are getting skimpier with fuel these days in order to save moeny - there was an article about it recently in one of the big papers (NY Times?). It's probably not that your plane was running out, but that they wanted to make sure they had more than enough to compensate in case they had a delay in landing in Dulles. It could also have been that the the fuel stores at Dulles were low, so the plane needed to refuel somewhere else to have enough for wherever it was going next. But the article did express concerns that this practice might become a safety issue.

I did hear that one of the early Edinburgh to NY (Newark) flights diverted to one of the Canadian airports to get fuel. Again, I don't know if it was truly a low fuel case, or whether it related to getting cheaper fuel or not having the needed fuel stores at the departure airport.

Kate

On one very hot day in Las Vegas the wind shifted making a shorter runway the active runway. Our plane was too heavy to take off on the shorter runway. We waited 30 minutes hoping the wind would shift back. It didn't and we had to taxi back, download fuel to get to an acceptable take-off weight, then add a stop in Reno and put on enough fuel to reach our destination.

Jet engines work better in colder weather. If the weather is unusually warm (100 vs 85 planned or 35 vs 20 planned), it can make a difference.

Planes take off into the wind to add lift. The length of the runway and wind speed make a difference.

Fuel loads are planned on projected temperature and weather. If the weather is bad at the destination and alternates, fuel loads change.

When flying, arriving safely trumps on time. The best you can do is give yourself plenty of extra connection time. In the Air Force we said, "Flexibility is the key to airpower." That also applies to carrying on luggage

Had an almost funny experience few years ago. We were flying from Philadelphia to Tampa Florida to visit my sister. She lives about 1 1/2 hours from either the Tampa or the Orlando airport. The weather was bad over Tampa, so our flight just circled around Tampa waiting for the weather to clear. It started to run out of gas, so they landed us in Orlando to refuel. I kidded my mom we should get off here. We finally took off for Tampa and were about 2 1/2 hours late. My sister was no where to be found. She did not have a cell phone. No one aswered at her home number. After waiting about an hour I was paged in Tampa. My sister forgot to look at our flight schedule and mistakenly had driven to Orlando and had been waiting for us there. The airlines for some reason would not tell her what flight we were on. (Privacy rights, I guess?). Eventually, she found someone to call the Tampa airport to see if might be there. Finally, after waiting at least another 2 hours, she arrive in Tampa for us.