This may not apply to all airlines, or apply to today’s world, but I was watching a video on Britannia 226A crash from 1999. In the video, they mentioned that the pilots were under pressure to land, so they wouldn’t have to explain to their bosses why they landed with less than the minimum amount of fuel required.
If a plane takes off, has to abandon a landing attempt, or complete an extra go around, or has to stay in a holding pattern, or has to divert… but they land safely without incident nor issue, why would that be an issue? What else could the pilots do?
Edit to add the answer (thank you for all of the replies, everyone! I misunderstood entirely what the video was attempting to convey): There are aviation safety boards with strict rules and landing with low fuel is grounds for a report and an investigation into the flight, so the safety boards can find the root cause for why the flight did not have an adequate amount of fuel on landing. The pilots may get into trouble if the investigation finds they were at fault, but it is more geared towards safety and attributing a root cause for the issue to make a low fuel event less likely in the future.
In: 707
It’s for safety. They have to ensure they have enough fuel to keep the plane in the air when unexpected things happen, like having to divert to another airport due to weather , or a crowded pattern.
Profit and safety are usually mutually exclusive, so unless companies are forced to do things, they’ll sacrifice safety for profit. Since fuel costs money, and carrying fuel costs money, regulations are needed to force them to carry more fuel than they otherwise might. That’s not to say they wouldn’t choose to do so on their own necessarily, but it would only be because crashing and killing passengers hurts business more than carrying extra fuel.
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