Make a decision?
 

Quick question. OPS people know situations like acft stuck somewhere due to tech or weather. Let's suppose that you have no other acft avail but you need to do some sectors. These things happen usually at midnight, isn't it? ;)
Who is making decision to charter substiture aircaft from other airline in that case at your airline? Shift leader, chief ops (to be called at home), commercial dept or.... ? Do you have a listing of preference for other airlines or even pre-agreed arrangements on that case?
I would really appreciate an answers on that (we changing our OPS structure at the moment), and please mention how many aicraft you operating and how many people working in OPS per day/night shift (you understand the difference between OPS of small biz-jet company and BA or CX).

Cargo , we have some 30 acft and in the midst
of a ****ty night the Ops Duty Officer is the
one to make the call,no commercial input is needed and he need not go higher , he is the one paid to take it on and to carry the can.
Hope this helps

My company, handling 50 acft in a mixed charter-scheduled pax operation.
One Duty Manager, one Flight Watcher, two Flight Planners, together with between 2 and 8 people trying to control the crews are on duty at any time.
More people work at the same location on daytime, but not directly related to OPS controlling.

We have some pre-agreed arrangements with some airlines, but if they fail, any others are enquired of their availability. Preferential lists exist even for the pre-agreed airlines.

Usually any decission with "pre-agreed airlines" is made by the shift leader, while for the rest we wake up the unlucky guy from the commercial dept. who is on guard that night (or weekend) :D

Have a look to my 'call-sign', I've enjoyed so many of them :D
In my previous job (Night ops Cargo operator, 30 aircrafts, Hub and spoke, Officer-Dispatcher-Controller-duty manager), decision is for the Duty manager except during week-ends when the Controller can charter well-known carriers with pre-agreed arrangements if required.
In my current job (Bizz jets, 15 aircrafts, worlwide ops, Dispatcher-duty manager), decision is always for the duty manager (on call during nights).

I work for a cargo outfit ( approx 15 a/c scheduled & ad hoc work) and when the need arises to charter sub aircraft, it is the responasbility of the duty commercial bod.
I would love to make the decision myself but they dont pay me enough to make descions like that so bollox to them