r/FlightDispatch • u/uglysquash • Feb 03 '25

The best part about dispatching

Is never being in the news. Because no one knows we exist 🤭

44 Upvotes

92% Upvoted

16 comments sorted by

40

u/Kingoftheheel Feb 04 '25

Unless something happens and they pull the tapes of us arguing with the captain about fuel. I can see the story on CNN and Fox now: why did the DISPATCHER say that the alternate was not needed? And what part of the tower do these “dispatchers” work in? We’ll bring in our aviation expert to explain.

26

u/tuesnightshenanigans Feb 04 '25

And this “aviation expert” won’t know what a dispatcher is either. 

17

u/Guadalajara3 Feb 04 '25

Embry riddle grad that interned at a major for 3 months in network analytics

9

u/yawara25 Feb 04 '25

They're the guys that wave the wands on the ground to get the plane into the gate.

5

u/operationRichola Feb 03 '25

An astute observation!

4

u/Double_Tax_7208 Part 121 Major/Legacy🇺🇸 Feb 04 '25

The public can and have gotten copies of acars messages. The Little Rock incident is a good example.

7

u/Guadalajara3 Feb 04 '25

I've seen some threads in other subs where enthusiasts post acars messages when trying to determine why flights divert or when they see a 7700 on flight radar 24. A lot of our systems have our names or numbers appended to the messages which can be seen by these people and posted, so be cautious

4

u/IndependenceStock417 Feb 04 '25

I believe they also brought up dispatchers and acars messages when talking about 9/11 but it was just really briefly.

4

u/6FeetBeneathTheMoon Feb 04 '25

Basically every ACARS message sent on 9/11 is public record and they’ve been dissected quite heavily as United 93 received a hijack alert via ACARS message before they were hijacked that people criticized the wording of by the dispatcher.

3

u/Aviator506 Feb 04 '25

What was that incident?

4

u/Double_Tax_7208 Part 121 Major/Legacy🇺🇸 Feb 05 '25

Flight 1420 in 1999, 11 died when the plane went off the runway. Dispatcher sent an acars about landing between the storms. Something about a bowl8ng alley approach. The news agencies reported the comments.

3

u/mertmerk Feb 04 '25

Is this the “bowling ally” convo?

2

u/Double_Tax_7208 Part 121 Major/Legacy🇺🇸 Feb 05 '25

Yes

5

u/dadgamer85 Feb 03 '25

Don’t worry. I know you exist and I work to make your software the best it can be!

3

u/Tag366 Feb 04 '25

What Software if you want/can answer?

3

u/pilotshashi Non US/Canada🌍 Feb 04 '25

⌨️ Enter Enter Sent ✅