Information (source):
Status of airplanes and crews, National Weather Service and in house forecasts, RVR, airport status.
Stakeholders:
Customers, employees, flight crews, contingency, maintenance control, crew scheduling, aircraft routing.
Specific questions:
Q: What do you do when an airplane breaks down?
A: They keep a hot spare airplane in strategic locations, and they also operate a “sweep” airplane that leaves empty from an airport on the east coast and flies ready to divert to any location on the eastern half of the US. If an aircraft breaks down, the sweep airplane will refile for the broken airplane’s location. Sometimes, several refilings are needed because maintenance situations can be very dynamic. If no diversion is required, the sweep airplane goes into a hold at 39,000 feet near the home airport until the last eastern region airplane takes off. The sweep airplane continues to be available as the focus of operations shifts to the west. If an airplane breaks and no other recovery is possible, (for example, the sweep airplane may already be committed to another problem and no other aircraft can be diverted to pick up the extra cargo), a subcontractor may be used. As a last resort, the documents may be moved to a small airplane.
Q: What kinds of deadlines do you have to deal with?
A: They try to have the paperwork to the gateway at least two hours before departure. At some gateways, they may call earlier and ask for the fuel because the airplane’s there and the fueler’s available.
Q: What kinds of constraints might affect large numbers of airplanes or the entire fleet?
A: Weather at the home airport, of course. Also, if a belt breaks during the sort, the whole fleet can be held up. Low pressure can place major constraints on payloads, especially for the older jets.
Q: How often do you get information updates?
A: Part of it depends on the stage. Going to the west coast, landing minimums aren’t of much interest until the airplane is close to the destination. But then, RVR becomes critically important, and real-time RVR would be very useful. Now, the dispatcher has to continually call the tower to get it. Also, real-time payload information would be useful; payloads on the dispatch form are estimated, but the fueler may put more on than was asked for, or winds may be worse than expected, or the crew might have to stay low longer than expected; several events may cause the actual payload to differ substantially from what was estimated, and the difference may drive decisions about whether diversions are needed or not.
Q: What kind of information have you wanted but not been able to get right away?
A: RVR. Also, any changes by ATC to a flight plan, or if ATC rejects the flight plan. The first time the dispatcher finds out about either of those is when the crew calls prior to departure.
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