EASA Contingency Rule - 3% Not Being Applied?

[PilotGW]

Hi!

I’ve just tried using the EASA contingency fuel rules for the first time tonight, on a flight from EGGW (Luton) to LEAL (Alicante) in the Fenix A320.

SimBrief automatically selected the Enroute Alternate as LEZG (Zaragoza).

However, the contingency fuel calculated according to the OFP is still 5% of the trip fuel, instead of 3%. I tried generating the OFP a few times to see if it was a glitch. I also tried both the LIDO and EZY OFP layouts, but the result was the same.

Is there another stipulation to this rule that I’m missing, as I was under the assumption that the selection of an ERA meant you could reduce contingency to 3%?

Many thanks in advance!

[Rodeo314]

If the 3% contingency is less than 5 minutes, but the 5% contingency is above 5 minutes, 5% gets selected (instead of the 5-minute minimum). This was discussed in another topic; it doesn’t necessarily make sense when looking at the rules but apparently it’s how it’s done IRL.

Regards,

Tim