Hi Older wiser,
Nothing has been set in stone yet, but it would appear that by the time we move into T5, the dispatch role will have been split into Turn Round Manager and Centralised Load Control. TRM is dispatch-ish, but without load control licensing, CLC is as the name suggests.
I'm not sure what benefits this is supposed to bring to BA, as it would seem that now if a pallet doesn't turn up on stand I will no longer be able to retrim the aircraft and issue a new loadsheet, rather, I will have to phone a load controller in an office somewhere, relay the information, allow him to make a decision and then relay that information back to the loaders / crew.
This seems to me to add another layer of complexity and possibility for communication errors, whilst removing the current operational flexibilty afforded by having people who can do load planning in the morning followed by a dispatch shift in the afternoon - very useful to cover sickness etc..
BA's apparent rational behind this is that 'Other airlines do it that way', however, other airlines also have their cabin crew clean the aircraft on a 25minute turn round and sell you sandwiches once you have fought for the good seats, so I'm not sure how much that is relevant...
I will concede that advances in IT technology will inevitably make load control easier, but I'm not sure that removing the dispatchers license entirely is a good thing in the long run. It will be interesting to see how the Flight Crews react to this proposed change.