Tech Crew Decision Making.
The below article is a great exercise in learning about the responsibilities of crew decision making.
Each airline and respective CAA has required fuel policies. Flight Despatchers must comply with these when building a Flight Plan and the crew may add fuel upon deciding if contingencies justify. Examples would be if crew felt weather could be worse than forecast or the destination airport may be more congested than planned. (Also if the aircraft has a defect that doesn't prevent it flying.) This crew come up against fuel endurance limits that potentially threaten safety if breached. (For interest long range Flight Plans generally load A to B fuel with a 2% reserve, Instrument Approach, B to C fuel and 30 min reserve holding fuel.) In this case I suspect there was no B to C fuel due to Perth having a second runway which effectively becomes an alternate airport subject to acceptable weather. However it looks like they carried 20 min extra holding due to congestion.
The significant decisions occurred in several places. Firstly at Flight Planning by the crew deciding how much fuel to load. Being a long flight they may have kept reserves to prescribed minimum so as the aircraft could carry a large payload or felt extra fuel was not justified. Also to carry extra fuel requires further fuel to burn due increased aircraft weight! Nowadays an extra consideration maybe the cost of fuel! Naturally enroute the crew is required to monitor fuel burn and update their fuel status at destination so as to accurately determine remaining fuel time. You will note from the article the crew were put into a challenging situation when instructed to hold that potentially breached their fuel limits. A declaration of a Mayday is when an aircraft is in immediate danger so is carefully used. (Also there is a lot of reporting involved afterward with the likes of potentially an Inquiry!)
This article then reflects not just the skills required to pilot an aircraft but also personal qualities. (Making sound judgement and appropriate assertiveness backed up by thorough knowledge and experience.)
I trust you will have experienced some of these qualities in the early screening and ongoing training.
