Definition

This article provides flight crews with general guidance on calculating holding fuel endurance. The limit of that endurance is sometimes called "bingo fuel." That is the fuel level at which an aircraft must depart holding and fly either to the filed destination or to an alternate airport. Nothing herein supersedes Aircraft Flight Manual (AFM) guidance or other official publications for a given operator and/or aircraft.

The description below assumes that the flight crew has a dispatch release with a computer flight plan that includes the expected fuel burn from waypoint to waypoint. Even though some Flight Management Systems (FMS) can calculate holding fuel endurance, it is always a good technique to back up the FMS with manual calculations, in case of data entry error or equipment failure.