Funny Dispatching Stories

[Buck_Boley]

I have tons as do most Dispatchers who have been around the block a few times. Here's one to get the ball rolling....

I was dispatching a Metro (19 passenger capacity) from MSP-LSE for Mesaba and since the weather was VFR, I went with 1100 lbs. of fuel and therefore all passengers could be carried as this is an extremely fuel critical acft.

I got a call about 45 minutes before the flight was scheduled to depart from a frantic operations coordinator who said, "You aren't going to believe this but the fueler topped it off (4400 lbs.) We will only be able to carry one passenger. What do you want to do?"

"That does it. I have had enough of these fuelers misfueling our planes - I am going to call him up and I will get back to you," I said.

I called the fueler up personally and intended to light this guy up.
"Did you fuel that plane," I asked.
The fueler replies, "Yes I did."
"Why did you top off my plane?"
He replies.......
"WELL, I DIDN'T WANT ANY OF DEM PLANES RUNNIN' OUT OF GAS UP DERE"

 

[Buck_Boley]

RE: Funny stories

OK, here's another....

Phil was a character that quickly got the name "Land" Phil as he did not
bathe regularly. We had to disinfect the desk after he was done, especially the mouthpiece on the phone as it stank like garbage after he was done. He usually slept in his car or (I am not making this up) under the stairs in the maintenance hangar and went into work from there.

Anyways, one day someone spotted him getting out of his car in the parking lot through our window in the office and said, "Hey guys, look at Phil."

About 5 of us initially went over there to see him go through a whole regimen of stretches and were kind of laughing when he turned around and went to the fence and started urinating on it. Keep in mind, he was about 50 yards from the building (and several restrooms) and in full view of the entire airlines. Soon, EVERYONE was at the window watching him.
Then a pilot got out of his car a few cars down to catch the shuttle, so Phil turned to the side away from him and continued taking a leak on the
front tire of the car next to him. By now everyone was laughing and when Phil came in a few minutes later everyone gave him a standing ovation.

He says......"WHAT???"
A maintenance controller laughed and said, "I haven't seen anything that small since grade school!!!"

Phil moved on to another airline shortly after that....I wonder whatever happened to him.

 

[cksport]

LMAO! I needed a good laugh.

 

[Sandhawk]

OK, here's another....

Phil was a character that quickly got the name "Land" Phil as he did not
bathe regularly. We had to disinfect the desk after he was done, especially the mouthpiece on the phone as it stank like garbage after he was done. He usually slept in his car or (I am not making this up) under the stairs in the maintenance hangar and went into work from there.

Anyways, one day someone spotted him getting out of his car in the parking lot through our window in the office and said, "Hey guys, look at Phil."

About 5 of us initially went over there to see him go through a whole regimen of stretches and were kind of laughing when he turned around and went to the fence and started urinating on it. Keep in mind, he was about 50 yards from the building (and several restrooms) and in full view of the entire airlines. Soon, EVERYONE was at the window watching him.
Then a pilot got out of his car a few cars down to catch the shuttle, so Phil turned to the side away from him and continued taking a leak on the
front tire of the car next to him. By now everyone was laughing and when Phil came in a few minutes later everyone gave him a standing ovation.

He says......"WHAT???"
A maintenance controller laughed and said, "I haven't seen anything that small since grade school!!!"

Phil moved on to another airline shortly after that....I wonder whatever happened to him.

:laugh:

 

[Buck_Boley]

Back in the day, we used to have to take all the sick calls for crew scheduling as they did not report in until 9 am on Sundays. This also happened to be the flight attendants favorite day to call in sick and it wasn't too much fun trying to cover their flights due to their creative excuses.

Anyways, one of all time favorite excuses came when it was just me and one other guy early in the morning. The other guy was a short, bald-headed man with glasses who was a very good dispatcher with a history of being a little surly early in the morning. I took a call from a distraught flight attendant who was crying and she sobbed, "I can't came in today -- there was something wrong with the dye I used on my hair and it turned blue!!!"

I said, well hang on there a second, let me pass you over to the dispatcher doing your flight. As I transferred her over, I said to the other dispatcher, "Hey - wait till you hear THIS one."

I waited patiently for an outburst but it never came. All I heard was ......"Yeah........yeah.........then after a few more seconds, ok, I will take care of it."

Still no reaction. He hung up, then turned to me and says, "I don't know what the problem is, I have NO hair and I still came in to work!!!"

We both STILL laugh about that one......!!

 

[dispatchguy]

I took a F/A sick call once (major carrier F/A scheduling desk) and the light in the loafers male F/A said he still had rectal bleeding from the night before and was going to the Dr.

I turned about 6 zillions shades of red in an instant. He came right out (yeah, he was out alright) and said it like it was just another day...

I was stunned, you know that deer in headlights kind of stunned. I put him on ONSL, then took a break. I remember hitting the side of my head trying to get that damned image out of my skull - you know, bad brain bad brain!

He wouldve made Christopher Lowell (an interior decorator) look straight...

 

[Buck_Boley]

Our old Chief Dispatcher liked to rail on the Dispatchers for their annual review. He would call each and every one of us in there and proceed to spend an hour saying how lousy we were. If one guy wore a hat on the weekend, then EVERYONE would get blamed for lackadaisical and careless behaviour. Once, he had a guy in there and had a time card for several weeks ago and says, "On this time card alone, you were late for duty 3 times and this is just one week. You have been showing up late and not taking this job seriously and this is unacceptable. After lambasting him for a few more minutes, he goes -- so what do you have to say about THAT!"

The Dispatcher was really bummed out, "I am always on time...I don't know how this could have happened." Then he looked at the card and says -- wait a minute -- this isn't even my card --- it's (Joe's!!!!) The Chief turns the card over and doesn't apologize.....he just says --- nevertheless......don't let this ever happen!!!

.......Another story --- same Chief Dispatcher..........

The company decided to cut its annual Dispatch Party for budgetary reasons so I thought maybe it would be a good idea to recycle all the aluminum cans everyone used and use the proceeds to get a keg and maybe some food for a party of our own.

All the Dispatchers did a great job and everyone pitched in. With all the pop we drank on shift, we were filling up large trash bags in no time. I know we filled up at least 10 which if it didn't pay for everything would at least put a good sized dent in it. Everyone looked forward to getting together for a nice summer party after all.

Our Chief Dispatcher collected all the bags and took them to his house so he could later on take them to the recycling plant. A few days went by then a few weeks and everyone was trying to make plans for the party. Finally, I asked the Chief Dispatcher how much did we get and when was this party going to be.

He says, "Someone stole all the cans out of my yard so no party. Too bad."

Everyone was pretty upset, but eventually everything died down. Nobody ever recycled again after that and we never did have anymore annual Dispatch parties either. I am almost positive he cashed it in and used it for his trips to the casino because that's the kind of guy he was, but we will never be sure. I know if I were in his shoes I would have sprung for a party out of my own pocket because I would have felt responsible to all the guys even if the cans HAD been stolen. Not him, though. He got bounced by the next regime fairly quickly and his managing days came to a quick end and last I heard he was driving a truck for UPS. I don't think too many tears were shed when he left, either.....

The moral of the story I guess is what comes around goes around....

 

[dispatchguy]

Did that chief have the initials Bravo Kilo, about 5 ft 4, skinny as a rail, but when u pissed him off you saw the vein in his beady little skull pop out?

He was a miserable little prick - so I hear....

 

[Buck_Boley]

No......this chief was T.T........I guess there are more than one of those guys managing airlines. It really makes you appreciate the good managers out there!

 

[T/SF34/A]

Charter out of Carbondale, IL late one evening, I called up the FBO ahead of time and asked them to fuel the Saab 340 to 3400# and also requested they wait for the crew to arrive before beginning fueling. They apparently didnt want to wait for the crew to arrive and began fueling the Saab to 3400 GALLONS... Needless to say, the Saab does not hold that much fuel...........

One day a group of dispatchers are all standing around one of the computers so I walk up to see what was so interesting. I remember laughing while staring at the computer screen and seeing one of our aircraft (on a reposition flight) out in the middle of the Gulf of Mexico. Unfortunately we were not certified for overwater ops and a self disclosure was soon to follow.

 

[aveator]

LMAO,,just another day of living the dream in aviation....:beer:

 

[J.Otto]

thanks for the laughs!

 

[Squirrel29]

Charter airline business is funny you always get the most wierdiest things happening to you.

First one that I think of happened back in 99-00 was supposed to fly a NBA team out of DCA to ATL. Had a pressurization problem and the team didnt want to fly unpressurized so they sat at the FBO for about 4 hours while we tried to fix the aircraft. At the same time we had a flight going into IAD to drop off a team and then take a hockey team to RDU. Well we decided to get the NBA team to go over to IAD and use that aircraft and the hockey team was willing to fly on the aircraft that had pressurization problems (MEL'ed). So I called up the trainer and told him the plan and that they would need to secure there own transportation to IAD. Called the FBO a few minutes later and the lady said it the funniest site she had ever seen. 6'7" players grabbing any taxi, limo available and squeezing as many as they could in there. Called the Pilot over at IAD and told him the story and gave him a heads up so he wouldnt bust out laughing when they arrived.

 

[T/SF34/A]

We were taking Sen John Kerry to Iowa back around 03-04 and the people who hired us for the charter gave us the wrong FBO information. Upon arrival, the plane went to the FBO which was listed in the charter package...wrong FBO! It didnt take long to realize that they were on the wrong ramp. Eventually Mr. Kerry was dropped of where he should have been in the first place. After that day, the charter company updated our FBO list.

 

[Buck_Boley]

Several years ago the company decided to cater in a Thanksgiving dinner from Boston Market for the guys who had to work. Everyone enjoyed a nice feast but afterwards there was still 3-4 huge trays of food left. When I came into work the next day, the first thing I thought of when I got in was scoring some leftovers, but when I opened the refrigerator, there was no food left.

I immediately thought those greedy late shift guys had eaten not only their dinner but polished off ours as well, but when they got in, the first words out of their mouths was -- "Hey sweet - we get leftovers today." I thought it was a joke and said, "Yeah how did you guys eat all that food." They replied, "What are you talking about - we left 8 huge trays of food in there!!"

Well it didn't take long to figure what happened. There was no overnight dispatcher at the time and only one maintenance controller was there in between 1 am and 3:30 am and we cornered him into telling what happened. Evidently, "Re" Todd the mx controller took all 8 industrial sized trays of food and stuffed them into his station wagon and took it all home!! He laughed and said he didn't think anyone else wanted it!! His family was eating leftovers well into December and everyone in the office was NOT happy. Not only did he receive the wrath of all the dispatchers, controllers and schedulers who would have enjoyed an extra snack or two, he earned the nickname "The Grinch who stole Thanksgiving" and was also named the first official "Turkey of the Year."

"He took all our corn.......he took our roast beast
He took everything we had from our Thanksgiving feast!!!!"

I am not sure what ever happened to the Grinch as he left a few years later but the story is always brought up on Thanksgiving Day and has become a ritual as well as the ReTodd Memorial Turkey of the year award. If you ever see him at your airline though, I strongly urge you to guard your lunch, especially on Thanksgiving because he will probably strike again!!