Walk onto almost any airplane these days and when you peek inside the cockpit you’ll likely only see two flight crewmembers: pilot and co-pilot. Most passenger operations and nearly almost all professional aviation operations utilize aircraft that require two crewmembers on the flight deck. When we arrive at the airplane for a flight, we’re handed a stack of papers called the flight release. The release contains our flight plan, fuel requirements, departure and arrival airport weather, notams, and alternate airports if required. This document is required to be on board the aircraft for scheduled air carrier service, and it is prepared by our dispatcher.
The dispatcher sits at a desk often- times far from where I sit in the cockpit. The dispatcher is still considered jointly responsible for the preflight planning, release, and safe operation of the flight. Furthermore, the dispatcher plans our route of flight considering weather and fuel load. During the flight, the dispatcher will monitor our flight progress and keep track of weather along our route as it develops, alerting us of any significant changes.
We can communicate with our dispatchers via voice or datalink. This provides us with up-to-the-minute weather details as well as potential ATC delays at our destination. An updated TAF can be sent if it contains drastically different weather than what the flight release depicts, allowing us to make better-informed decisions.
During emergencies the dispatcher is an invaluable resource as well. Finding an alternate airport during an in-flight emergency that suits the needs of the emergency can be a task-saturating event; but with a dispatcher, they often are aware of your emergency before you even tell them. After declaring an emergency, ATC will alert the company via telephone, informing the dispatcher of the emergency and allowing him or her to start to work on procedures to help us through the situation. In certain cases, the dispatcher has the ability to declare an emergency for the flight crew, should communications between the flight crew and ATC be lost.
When it comes to crew resource management, one of the core components is that you must not limit your resources to the cockpit. You may find invaluable resources elsewhere, such as a passenger, ATC, another aircraft on frequency—or, if you’re so lucky, a well-trained and experienced dispatcher.
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