Big meeting: Skywest, ASA/XJet, Alpa, SAPA

[dojetdriver]

Your experience............ is definitely not useful for managing a large fleet of airplanes, flights, and crews.

Kinda like management.

 

[PBRstreetgang]

Knowing what the job entails, and knowing how the job is actually accomplished, are two different things. Your experience in the cockpit is pretty useless outside a cockpit, and is definitely not useful for managing a large fleet of airplanes, flights, and crews.

But you're omniscient, so you're welcome to try.

I will bet the average pilot would have the ability to manage a large fleet of planes, flights and crews, I don't think that the average management pogue would have a snowballs chance in he!! of getting an airliner to the runway, much less into the air.....

 

[ASApuppy]

In all seriousness, give me an internet connected tablet on an internet connected aircraft. Put in aircraft performance software and real time graphical weather. Overhaul the archaic NOTAM system with one that provides what we need. And poof, dispatchers go the way of the travel agents. We can still utilize "flight followers", but will only need 10% of the bodies. Long haul international is a different game, so they stay for that.

 

[XPOO]

In all seriousness, give me an internet connected tablet on an internet connected aircraft. Put in aircraft performance software and real time graphical weather. Overhaul the archaic NOTAM system with one that provides what we need. And poof, dispatchers go the way of the travel agents. We can still utilize "flight followers", but will only need 10% of the bodies. Long haul international is a different game, so they stay for that.

Are you talking about the inflight wi-fi that connects at .16M/sec? Yeah, you'll be cranking out releases left and right. How many of those 50-seaters have wi-fi on them, anyways? What about the EMBs? When the Aerodata server goes down, who are you going to call? Uhh...Dispatch? Can the company afford to sit 7,000 pilots down in 3 months worth of classes just to learn the software and feel comfortable letting you do your own releases? Can they fit the whole dispatch library in the cockpit of an EMB? I guess we could find out. Will your pilot group come up with a few select people who will make sure all the data that comprises a release is being kept up to date? Will you be able to contact the next pilot out of BFL to see what fuel he needs on his flight back to PHX so you can comply with the company's round-trip fuel policy on all US Airways flights? Will you also enter in all the delays, delay codes and keep them up to date in a timely manner throughout the day? Wont you be too busy flying an airplane? How are you going to make phone calls to all those outstations at 35,000ft above the ground to let them know your airplane wont be accepting any live animals for the day? When the hub is shut down for four hours due to snow removal, are you all going to get into a huge Skype chatroom and play rock/paper/scissors to see who goes where to get things all up and going again?

This would be downright comical. I actually wish we could do this for one day, just to see how hilarious it could actually end up being.

 

[Nevets]

Curious, what does the FAA say a dispatcher is required for? Because I don't think it includes all those things that you listed. It sounds like most of that stuff is required by the company and not the FAA. Probably something that can be taught to anyone and not require federal certification for.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to get rid of dispatchers.

 

[AntiJedi]

Curious, what does the FAA say a dispatcher is required for? Because I don't think it includes all those things that you listed.

He's not talking regulation per se. The post falls more in line with the whole fleet/crew/flight management issue I pointed out earlier, but adds documentation and notification issues, and potential gridlock.

 

[XPOO]

Curious, what does the FAA say a dispatcher is required for? Because I don't think it includes all those things that you listed. It sounds like most of that stuff is required by the company and not the FAA. Probably something that can be taught to anyone and not require federal certification for.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to get rid of dispatchers.

You can take over as many duties as you desire. All I'm trying to allude to is that there will always be a need for an Operational Control Center, which means my job security is pretty much set. Wanna do your own releases? Please, have at it. It still isn't going to magically eliminate my job.

 

[Nevets]

You can take over as many duties as you desire. All I'm trying to allude to is that there will always be a need for an Operational Control Center, which means my job security is pretty much set. Wanna do your own releases? Please, have at it. It still isn't going to magically eliminate my job.

Ok, but my question wasn't answered. Or are you saying that the release is what the FAA requires you to sign off.

 

[Russ]

XPOO

Your job is safe, it's there by government decree.

 

[rtmcfi]

Jesus, back to the integration. Enough dx bashing. Mine have pretty much always been great. I have found some mistakes, and they were all corrected graciously. Never caught any flack when I wanted to change anything on the release. I could probably do their job without them. As it is, they save me some work. Now, what kind of integration is ExpressJet shooting for? Any comments or input from JA?