Funny Dispatching Stories

[DX Rick]

Once had to cancel a flight because our male FA decided to close out the bar, and got overly wasted. When he never showed for the van the pilots went to his room, where the manager let them in to find his drank, naked butt laying on the bathroom floor.
He was warned not to go to the airport, but he did. He was sent back to the hotel room where he sobered up, positive spaced back to MDW and then fired.
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We had 3 airplanes (out of 17) frozen in LEX one morning, thanks to an ice storm.
On top of snow storms, the day went to shiat. One flight crew who was told to go get food and relax as their schedule was being rearranged, couldn't comprehend. They kept calling us to see if it was ok to go get food. Then checking to see what their schedule was like. Then to see if it was ok to watch TV in the crew room.
Finally one of the DX'ers yelled "Jesus Christ! Do I need to come down there and hold your Fing hand!?!?!"...They never called back.

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We had a captain call us on the radio and said that he would be spending his 4 hour break in the cockpit of the airplane. We later find out that the FA that he had been banging, her husband showed up in OPs and was looking for him. He knew he was safe on the ramp, so that's where he hid.

 

[onewithwings]

I have a few but I'm going to refrain from posting the "good ones" because I know we have "eyes" that check these boards. Most are FA related.

Had to cancel a flight because the FA refused the flight due to no clean panties. (We now refer to her as the "primadonna panty princess".) Evidently she didn't realize you can actually wash your "skivies" in the sink and we had no reserve FA's for that base.

Had FA's refuse a revenue flight because the aircraft pressurization system was deferred. The route they were to fly is always and has been always planned at 090.

Back when I worked graveyard, I was the only person in the building. No MX and no CX at the time. I received a call from a hotel manager to inform me one of our FA's had been arrested. He went on to explain that this FA (married male) had a "lady of the evening" in his room who had been tied to the bed. Evidently they were practicing some "S&M" because there was lots of leather and chains strewn around the room. Long story short, the police had to break the door down to gain access due to the loud music and her screaming. Not long afterward, the Captain called and informed me that his flight will be delayed due to crew rest and that he needed a replacement FA. When everyone arrived in the morning, I was taken into a private room to discuss the evenings events with admin....which was difficult to keep a straight face. (I can assure you no one left that room with a straight face. Everyone was chocking back laughter.)

 

[T/SF34/A]

Yea....I have a lot of the "good stories", unfortunately those will never make this board......

Rescue Mission:
Broken aircraft in ORF and 70 passengers stranded, aircraft ferried out for repair. Our code share partner calls and begs for us to move a spare to protect the passengers. Crew (2 pilots AND 2 flight attendants) are called out to the rescue. Pilots are notified of entire crew and are aware of FA show times. Aircraft departs on the repo early. It looks like the rescue mission will be a success until FAs call around 30 minutes AFTER departure looking for the pilots. Rescue mission....Failure.

 

[JonnyQwan]

Long ago, back in the Farmington days, I was spatchin for Mesa. One day, being it was Mesa, we had about every 1900 in PHX down for the count on mx. There was a 1900 that needed to stiff leg to FMN for mx and since just about everything else was broke and there were many non revs there trying to get back home to FMN. The company okayed the flight to go with non revs only. One of the gate agents made an announcement for all non rev pax trying to get to FMN to come up to the gate. A couple of our dxers were among the group. Gate agent tells all the non revs to follow here downstairs into the crew lounge. Once down there, the agent lets everyone know that there would be a plane stiff legging back to FMN in 20 mins or so and they brought them all downstairs so all the paying pax up in the gate areas, who are all on serious mx delays wouldn't find out that a plane would be leaving with nothing but non revs, as there might be a riot. Anyway, 20 mins or so later, a ramper opens the door to the ramp and signals for all of the 16 or 17 of these folks to make a mad dash out to the waiting aircraft. They quickly load up, and as the FO is getting ready to shut the cabin door, he makes the following announcement, "well everybody, this is the non rev express to FMN, everyone here is a non rev, correct? A lady in the backs pipes up, "what's a non -rev?", just as the cabin door is being raised. The FO, then seeks further info from the lady. Lady, you didn't pay for your ticket, correct? The lady then replies.... Hell, yes I paid for this ticket, they got forward the full walk up fare out of me because it was short notice! A few seconds later, the cabin door opens back up, the full fare lady pax is sent packin, and the plane full of non-revs were happily along their way! I have thought many times what was going on thru that lady's mind as Mesa Airlines had secretly packed her in a room beneath the main gates, and she was told not to let any of the other Mesa passengers know that she and these other "lucky passengers" were going to be snuck out onto a plane and secretly flown to there destination, all so the other unluckys would not riot in the gate area....... and then to be thrown back into the group of unknowing, unlucky, full fare paying passengers, that were well on their way to nowhere anytime soon, all for asking "what's a non rev?".

 

[Pull To Guns]

J.Q., I always enjoyed your stories of the "colorful" characters in the Mesa DX office when you worked there.

Although I didn't personally experience this, it is part of SKYW folklore. Apparently a pilot called his dispatcher and chewed him out because he accused said dispatcher of putting the wrong flight number, wrong captain, wrong city pair, wrong aircraft registration and wrong fuel on the release. Yep, you guessed it, this four-striped jerk picked up the WRONG RELEASE!

 

[405]

I always liked the guys that complained about their release after they signed it and were blocked out. Sorry this isn't funny but it was always something I personally thought was funny.

 

[WalterSobchak]

I always liked the guys that complained about their release after they signed it and were blocked out. Sorry this isn't funny but it was always something I personally thought was funny.

Didn't happen to me, but...in the same vein...

Dispatcher on desk next to me the other night had a crew send an exceptionally nasty ACARS message, going on and on about his horrible planning of flight to a single-runway airport with a scheduled runway closure "right at their arrival time" and having "no additional fuel for diversion". The dispatcher messaged back that NOTAMs are in zulu time unless otherwise noted. He never heard a word back from that crew and they landed without incident.

That kind of thing...pilots that have no idea how to read NOTAMs or weather...seems to happen at least once a day.

 

[flyjumpseat]

Had this via ACARS a couple days ago...

"WHAT DOES AD ABN OTS MEAN"

 

[405]

That kind of thing...pilots that have no idea how to read NOTAMs or weather...seems to happen at least once a day.

Any sort of issue with us not being able to file flight plans for whatever reason seems to throw pilots and ATC into a meltdown too. God forbid anyone has to call Clearance Delivery or Ground to file a flight plan over the radio.

 

[Pull To Guns]

Any sort of issue with us not being able to file flight plans for whatever reason seems to throw pilots and ATC into a meltdown too. God forbid anyone has to call Clearance Delivery or Ground to file a flight plan over the radio.

A big AMEN to that! What did these guys do when they were flying C172's around?

Another classic is the one where the captain calls and says the date is wrong on the release, "It has tomorrows date on it". I have to explain that in Zulu time, it IS tomorrow! I used to have several of those a month.

 

[dispatchguy]

Had this via ACARS a couple days ago...

"WHAT DOES AD ABN OTS MEAN"

His response shouldve been - what does reasonable suspicion drug test mean; for notam meanings are just general airmanship - those crews must be playing with their x-box at the crewpad on their day off, not improving their skills...

 

[dispatchguy]

A big AMEN to that! What did these guys do when they were flying C172's around?

Notam - whats a notam - is that all that crap that prints after a TAF? But now that their in-and-out burger money is one the line, they need to...

 

[WalterSobchak]

Another classic is the one where the captain calls and says the date is wrong on the release, "It has tomorrows date on it". I have to explain that in Zulu time, it IS tomorrow! I used to have several of those a month.

I still get a handful of those a month. I also still get a few calls per month from a captain trying to argue with me that an alternate is not required for certain TAFs with longer duration TEMPOs calling for no ceiling when the main body is OVC003...then want to continue arguing when it has been explained to them in detail. My latest reponse to these is: "Sir, I see more than 50 of these per day, on more than 200 days per year. Have a little faith, please.".

Semi-related sidenote: Does anyone else love schooling pilots on basic application of exemption 3585 as much as I do? Everytime I have to use 3585 to dispatch to an airport, I pray to Raptor Jesus for that phone call. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

 

[dispatchguy]

Semi-related sidenote: Does anyone else love schooling pilots on basic application of exemption 3585 as much as I do? Everytime I have to use 3585 to dispatch to an airport, I pray to Raptor Jesus for that phone call. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

At a regional I was at a while back, we couldnt make reference to 3585 in the remark on the release - we had to refer to the specific chapter and page it was located - RLSD VIA FOM P 7-5, or something like that

 

[onewithwings]

Semi-related sidenote: Does anyone else love schooling pilots on basic application of exemption 3585 as much as I do? Everytime I have to use 3585 to dispatch to an airport, I pray to Raptor Jesus for that phone call. It makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

LOL...try re-educating them on CAT III alternate mins! That makes you want to pull their hair out.

I've had the following selcals from very senior captains:

"Why didn't you accomodate my take off alternate with extra fuel"?

"Would you please amend my reserve fuel, it doesn't look right...it's too much"?!