Air carrier captain experienced delays arriving jfk on a VFR day which resulted in a declaration of ...

Narrative:

Approaching hoxie; given delay vectors. Informed ATC of limited fuel for such delays. Eventually; they tried to give us holding instructions. We told them we were minimum fuel and could not hold. They gave us some more vectors and asked our intentions. Dispatch gave us a fuel burn to our alternate but it was not based on actual fuel. Eventually they gave us clearance for the STAR into jfk. After lendy; ATC gave us a 170 heading for a long pattern to runway 22L. We reminded them we were minimum fuel. ATC asked how many minutes until fuel exhaustion. I told him 36 minutes. He said that was an emergency and he vectored us to VOR runway 13L which we then accomplished and landed without incident. Stop dispatching flights to jfk with so little fuel when jfk clearly cannot handle scheduled traffic on a cavok day. Dispatch fuel was not adequate.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air Carrier Captain experienced delays arriving JFK on a VFR day which resulted in a declaration of minimum fuel. Reporter believes that his company does not provide adequate fuel for normal delays into New York area airports.

Narrative: Approaching HOXIE; given delay vectors. Informed ATC of limited fuel for such delays. Eventually; they tried to give us holding instructions. We told them we were minimum fuel and could not hold. They gave us some more vectors and asked our intentions. Dispatch gave us a fuel burn to our alternate but it was not based on actual fuel. Eventually they gave us clearance for the STAR into JFK. After LENDY; ATC gave us a 170 heading for a long pattern to Runway 22L. We reminded them we were minimum fuel. ATC asked how many minutes until fuel exhaustion. I told him 36 minutes. He said that was an EMERGENCY and he vectored us to VOR Runway 13L which we then accomplished and landed without incident. Stop dispatching flights to JFK with so little fuel when JFK clearly cannot handle scheduled traffic on a CAVOK day. Dispatch fuel was not adequate.

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.

Attributes
ACN	896239
Time
Date	201006
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	JFK.Airport
State Reference	NY
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Commercial Fixed Wing
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Descent
Person 1
Function	Pilot Not Flying Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Inflight Event / Encounter Fuel Issue

Air carrier captain experienced delays arriving jfk on a VFR day which resulted in a declaration of minimum fuel. Reporter believes that his company does not provide adequate fuel for normal delays into new york area airports.