Hello Kellmark
Thanks for your reply.
Just to present myself a little further .. we are running operations dealing with flights going absolutely everywhere. I’ve been organising, and not only flight planning, flights heading to remote places such as Easter Island (IPC) or Anadyr (DYR) in northern Siberia. Those flights are requiring serious flight planning, with suitable alternates (if available) being hours away, weather not easily available (if available) . We even sometime need to have a navigator on board when over flying large non-English speaking ATC areas. You will understand that those are samples of flights that could encounter many potential hazardous issues while airborne.
Do you really think our pilots, and our management, would be ok to have the aircraft taking-off to those destinations without a professional skilful Flight Dispatcher in charge of the Ops control? Of course not, even if not a single of us has a License.
My point, the same as yours indeed, is that a Flight Dispatcher responsible of a flight should know what he’s doing. We both agree on this.
Now, you say that Europeans flights are not as safe as they could be (read: if they had adopted the US system). And here, sorry but I don’t agree.
You take, as an example, the Swiss Saab 2000 BSL-HAM flight that has diverted to Werneuchen Air Base . A short flight (EFT 1.15), with forecasted bad weather upon arrival, that went horribly wrong. I don’t think the final report has yet been published, can’t find it anywhere though, so I won’t argue on who’s to blame. The only thing I can tell you for sure is that all Crossair BSL Dispatchers were holding a FAA Dispatch License. I’ve visited myself their Control Room in late 2001, and was indeed impressed by their equipment and general organisation. I was only a visitor though, and it’s always easy to impress a visitor, but I do remember very well being told that it was a mandatory requirement for Flight Dispatchers to hold the FAA License. It’s obvious here, with a licensed Pilot and a licensed Dispatcher, that
the qualification of those involved is not to be questioned. It is analyse of the information available and the resulting decision made prior and during the flight that is the possible problem. This is called human factor, it depends of each individual involved … taking the good or bad decision. I don’t think you can blame the Europeans here, it could have happened anywhere.
On my side, I would prefer to take another relevant example. A Ryanair 737 approaching his destination on a scheduled flight, I think it was in 2003 and the airport was somewhere in France, and realising that the Tower was closed. It was written in the NOTAM …
Again, a job has not been done properly (an aircraft has departed with no one checking the NOTAM). The Dispatcher has believed that the Captain would check his NOTAM while the captain has assumed the NOTAM were checked by Operations. A dramatic example of a theoretical “double-checking” resulting in a “zero-checking”. Again, not a problem of qualification here … human factor.
The Captain is the one in command, here’s the one who will have to deal with an emergency up there, he’s the one responsible for the life of his passengers. He MUST check himself everything prior to departure, don’t assume …just check.
Now, it’s the company responsibility to make sure that
A/ Pilots and Dispatchers are trained, professionals and competent
B/ Captain and Dispatch have ENOUGH time to do all the checks prior to the flight.
We all know that this “enough time” and “enough staff” is the real problem, not only here but, basically, everywhere. That’s where something should be done asap.
Airlines can’t reduce “maintenance costs”, but they can indeed reduce “manpower” costs by offering lower salaries and hiring less people. Less people = more work, not good at all in a stressful environment.
When a fully qualified Dispatcher or a fully qualified Pilot is tired, and starts to assume rather than check, then we indeed have a safety issue. And I am not that sure that the “US Style system” would be the right answer to this problem …