I see the language in the article that almost seeks to fault the practice of tankering. In reality, tankering is almost extraneous to the situation; the focus should be on the fact that planes need to be within weight and balance, whatever the composition of that weight may be. Being properly weighted and balanced is more like a pie chart, in that there are many ways and amounts to configure and be within limits. I'm sure the real investigation is along these lines, but the media just sort of picked up on this tankering business went off on its own tangent on "negligent cost-cutting maneuvers" and such.
There's a million scenarios that could have led to this, including the passenger springing extra crap on them at the last second and trying to strong-arm them into going anyway (the cause of the Aliyah crash, frankly). In that scenario, you may find yourself needing to offload something, or ballast to balance (may be impossible if you're near max takeoff weight though), and what the offload is going to be is a decision that may need to be weighed: screaming passenger that his 16th amp can't go, or offload some fuel that you may be tankering for a really great reason?
The airlines typically have some luxury when it comes to weight and balance because most use a "bags get kicked off before passengers rule" so they can use the bags as a variable to keep inside the envelope and if one has to go, it goes, and the passenger often finds out at the destination. Not always the passenger's favorite method, but it avoids this situation!
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Originally Posted by South Range Family
I can see being put over the max takeoff weight, but I find it strange that they can throw of the CG by filling the tanks to max capacity. The wings are the the fuel tanks. They are also the fulcrum point for the balance. Adding the weight to the fulcrum point really shouldn't matter that much. I guess it depends on how they have the interior configured. The smaller airplanes are much more sensitive when it comes to a few pounds here or there. A big airliner wouldn't even notice the difference.
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On a geeky note in response to this:
Small planes can get finicky sometimes, yeah. I don't know anything about the CRJ/Challenger, so I don't know how they are, although I've heard some complaining about being weight restricted oftentimes. I remember flying the older Bonanzas (the V tailed 33/35's specifically, they fixed it on later models) and you could get your center of gravity beyond aft limits doing strangely normal things (although tankering fuel would have helped in the Bonanza's case haha). Then there was Concorde, and those changing center of gravity needs and fuel management was just awesome.
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