Your Thoughts

[G-SAML]

Hello there,
Im a new member of this forum and a newbie to the industry having only been in it for 6 months.
Im currently an operations assistant for a schedualed airline at gatwick and loving it, however ive always wanted to become a dispatcher. My aim was to gain experiance and move on to a dispatch job, however after my searching through web pages and recruitment papers i have found that vacencies for dispatch jobs in the UK are non-existant. Am i going about this the wrong way? Shud i be looking for ramp jobs and move on from there? Whats the best way to get into dispatch? Another dilema i have is since working in airline ops a few people have sugested that going from Ops to dispatch is a move in the wrong direction as many people move from dispatch to ops. Just wanted to get some adivce from people well established in the industry, im not out to find the job which pays the most but we all have to feed ourselves and our familes, can experianced dispatchers earn good wages? As you can probally tell im really in the dark about dispatching so sorry about all the questions any help and advice will be great.
Thanks for reading

[RowleyUK]

I went straight in as a Dispatcher at MAN.....I had a CPL at the time but it didnt mean diddly!!

Come the summer there'll be lots of Dispatch jobs goin so you should be well placed for the move!!

[Who'stheDaddy]

Lets clear it up early.....

'Ground Dispatch' - Weight and balance if not CLP - Turnaround co-ordinator

Do any job with handling agent.

Flight dispatch / ops:
ie ops control, flight planning etc

Stay with airline or get city & Guilds (try Avtech2000 website) or FAA licence and work in the flight ops dept.

People will say flight ops is a step up compared to ground dispatch. Usually Ramp / pax sevices get promoted to afore mentioned (ground dispatch) as i said the other route is through airline ops depts - Some handling agents certain bases perform this function for airlines.

Plenty of schooling available for both - If you are prepared to do it. If not most ground handling agents will welcome you into dispatch with little training...............

Depends what you want

WTD

[crjlover]

pls don't mistake ground dispatch (ramp agent) with flight dispatcher.
I don't think that moving from OPS controller to flight dispatcher is moving in the wrong direction, it is just a different job.

regards
Mattia.

[G-SAML]

Thanks for replying. I know there is a variation of what a dispatcher is depending on where abouts in the world you live. In the UK i was under the impression that a 'dispatcher' was infact a turn-around co-ordinator, where as in the USA a 'dispatcher' also co-ordinates the turn around but also is involved in the flight-planning of the aircraft and other aspects where as in the UK this is handled by someone else.
I may be wrong and this may differ from airline, but working for BA shorthall at LGW this seems the way which it is done. Ill have to wait till the summer vacencies open again.