msid-agin said:
Hmmm, every time I've visited dispatch you weren't there.
Thanks for visiting, and sorry I missed you—maybe next time…
aterpster said:
Not hardly. There is the small matter of the minimum flight time to qualify for an ATP.
I probably could have made it clearer, but I was referring to the knowledge requirement similarities between the FAA/ATP exams, and in any event, I did say “..save (except for) the actual flying bit”. My mentioning 300+ hours of jumpseat time wasn’t intended to compete with anyone’s thousand hours of flight time, but was only in context and in comparison to the minimal (if any) number of hours crew spend with us. Dispatchers get exposure to crews and their environment, but the converse is rarely the case.
It’s a shame that you were never able to visit TWA’s office at JFK, as I knew several of their folks and they were all good eggs. Ditto for Ozark’s STL office, pre-merger. The comments you attributed to that TWA Sr, Dir. of Flt. Ops are not all that surprising, as it’s been my experience (multiple airlines) that most management types misunderstand dispatch (and operational control) just as many pilots misunderstand. Not all pilots, mind you, but many. The myths and misconceptions are plentiful, and most would be easily dispelled with some office visits. I think we have much more in common than we have differences, and we fight many of the same battles.
As an aside, you may find it ironic that TWA was the airline that I always wanted to work for. Attending Jr. HS in Overland Park in the late 1960s, myself and another student arranged a career day field trip to TWA’s sims that (at the time) were located downtown, across the river from MKC. In fact, my folks were renting a house owned by a TWA pilot who was flying freighters over in Saudi. Dave Meyer..something, IIRC…
Cheers...
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