Crew scheduler vs regional experience

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dxnoob

Well-Known Member
So hypothetically if it came down to it. Would my chances at getting in as a flight dispatcher at a specific airline be better if I am a crew scheduler at that airline or at a regional that has no direct ties with said airline? I hear about internal hiring into dispatch a lot. Just thought it was worth considering. Also it’s a frontier. Frontier is said airline.
 
I've always been in the camp of building dispatch time as you can take it anywhere. After doing dispatch I wouldn't want to do anything else so you just have to ask yourself what you really want.
 
I've always been curious...what do crew schedulers make at the legacy carriers?

For instance...does a UAL Pilot scheduler make more than a regional dispatcher?
 
Pepwave1 said:
I've always been curious...what do crew schedulers make at the legacy carriers?

For instance...does a UAL Pilot scheduler make more than a regional dispatcher?
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My understanding is our schedulers are compensated much better than a regional dispatcher.
 
I think out of 6 big career airlines, I think most of them would like all their dispatch new hires to be internals. Internals are only as good as the quality of employees hired into each department and the quality of those that obtain the dispatch certificate. An airline might like the idea of hiring and promoting from within to dispatch but a bad batch of internal hires might sway the dispatch hiring team to go for the safe bet from the regionals.

Regional dispatchers are the safe bet for career airlines. It is very unusual for a regional dispatcher to wash out of new hire training at a career airline. The career airline dispatch job is basically the same as a regional dispatch job but the software and airline specific procedures are different. Regional dispatchers come with built in habits that can be difficult to train so a fresh new dispatcher is almost always going to be preferred by a career airlines. Regional dispatchers are reliable and work at a desk quickly.

When the floodgates are open, all sources can have an equally good chance of being hired.
 
My personal experience was take a crew scheduling position at a regional you either want to work at or is closer in proximity to you then try to internally transfer.

Benefits of this is you get to know the airline you will likely begin dispatching at and you’ll be become a much more understanding employee in multiple facets of your company. Also you will be able to get face time and relevant interaction with you future hiring managers and eventual coworkers in the dispatch department. You will need to show interest and earnest to transfer by sitting with dispatchers before or after your shift as well as taking an interest in the decisions on how scheduling can affect the operation as a whole. You will be better from this.

Downsides of this is that you’re going to paid absolute garbage. It’s tough out there to live off mainline scheduler salaries for most people so you can imagine how god awful it is to be on a regional salary. Just think of it as an investment in yourself long term.

Now I will not lie to you or sugarcoat this next part. It will not make living easier, it will not make the day to day easier, you will doubt this decision and you will likely become depressed because of it because you will feel like you’re settling or failing. You will feel stuck and hopeless at times. You will lose your knowledge of dispatch school and feel inadequate for the job when interviews start up again. Just remember you are proving yourself to the company and your future managers in another department while trying to do the exact same for the managers and coworkers in scheduling. It sucks and it’s exhausting mentally and financially.

If this is something you truly want as a career with the lapse in hiring dispatch departments are experiencing currently then this will be a great decision in the long run to get you in a desirable position for a regional dispatch position, and eventually something better, in the future.
 
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McPlane said:
My personal experience was take a crew scheduling position at a regional you either want to work at or is closer in proximity to you then try to internally transfer.

Benefits of this is you get to know the airline you will likely begin dispatching at and you’ll be become a much more understanding employee in multiple facets of your company. Also you will be able to get face time and relevant interaction with you future hiring managers and eventual coworkers in the dispatch department. You will need to show interest and earnest to transfer by sitting with dispatchers before or after your shift as well as taking an interest in the decisions on how scheduling can affect the operation as a whole. You will be better from this.

Downsides of this is that you’re going to paid absolute garbage. It’s tough out there to live off mainline scheduler salaries for most people so you can imagine how god awful it is to be on a regional salary. Just think of it as an investment in yourself long term.

Now I will not lie to you or sugarcoat this next part. It will not make living easier, it will not make the day to day easier, you will doubt this decision and you will likely become depressed because of it because you will feel like you’re settling or failing. You will feel stuck and hopeless at times. You will lose your knowledge of dispatch school and feel inadequate for the job when interviews start up again. Just remember you are proving yourself to the company and your future managers in another department while trying to do the exact same for the managers and coworkers in scheduling. It sucks and it’s exhausting mentally and financially.

If this is something you truly want as a career with the lapse in hiring dispatch departments are experiencing currently then this will be a great decision in the long run to get you in a desirable position for a regional dispatch position, and eventually something better, in the future.
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This post Kind of confuses me. So I am looking at either being a regional dispatcher, or a crew scheduler at my CHOICE airline which is a ULCC. The crew scheduling position pays 5$/hr ,more than the regional dispatching position. But overall they seem nice and like a great beginning for dispatching. I will not be a crew scheduler for a regional under any circumstances. However, you make some very valuable points here, networking with the dispatchers, being depressed doing a job I don't like. BUT, I can do it. that's what I'm going to take from your post.

Its a really tough decision, and can be risky, if I mess up or displease management than the time I spent trying to build rapport is wasted.
 
When I worked at F9, 5+ years ago, they did not hire internally without dispatch experience. That may have changed, but the manager at the time specifically would not hire anyone without dispatch experience and I think he's still in charge. Its a different hiring environment though so not sure.
 
LastMinuteAirline said:
When I worked at F9, 5+ years ago, they did not hire internally without dispatch experience. That may have changed, but the manager at the time specifically would not hire anyone without dispatch experience and I think he's still in charge. Its a different hiring environment though so not sure.
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This indeed has changed but not because of the manager's desire but of the narrow pool of qualified canditates. F9 has not only hired internals but even folks external without dispatching experience. I will say though even if internal route is possible and has worked, I would still reccomend the regional route. As the big 4 hiring slows and with the new contract, it may once again become a bit more competative over the next year or two.
 
dxnoob said:
This post Kind of confuses me. So I am looking at either being a regional dispatcher, or a crew scheduler at my CHOICE airline which is a ULCC. The crew scheduling position pays 5$/hr ,more than the regional dispatching position. But overall they seem nice and like a great beginning for dispatching. I will not be a crew scheduler for a regional under any circumstances. However, you make some very valuable points here, networking with the dispatchers, being depressed doing a job I don't like. BUT, I can do it. that's what I'm going to take from your post.

Its a really tough decision, and can be risky, if I mess up or displease management than the time I spent trying to build rapport is wasted.
Click to expand...
Yeah.
it's become my opinion that spending time at a regional as a dispatcher is all smoke and mirrors.
If an airline is more likely to hire a damper with no dispatch experience who has a year and a dispatch certificate than someone who suffered through a regional...then the time at a regional dispatching is really just to prove you can take the pain.

and that seems like BS to me.
 
Pepwave1 said:
Yeah.
it's become my opinion that spending time at a regional as a dispatcher is all smoke and mirrors.
If an airline is more likely to hire a damper with no dispatch experience who has a year and a dispatch certificate than someone who suffered through a regional...then the time at a regional dispatching is really just to prove you can take the pain.

and that seems like BS to me.
Click to expand...

The problem is that to go the internal route means you limit who will potentially hire you to one airline. Regional experience gets you interviews with basically any major airline. I know the OP specifically wants to work at Frontier, maybe internal is a good option if someone is only willing to work at one spot. But it's too big of a gamble in my mind since hiring preferences can change and being stuck long term in crew scheduling sounds like a sure way to hate life.
 
Going internal is a route is a risk:

Imagine going to school as a dispatcher and you’re dealing with pilot complaining on some nonsense. Also, you probably not the only scheduler that would have their dispatch license.

If your thinking about a a place like F9, pretty sure if you have 1 or 2 year of 121 experience, you would have a real chance to get hired.

Going internal as a scheduler like @kalan31 said, it limits your option to 1.
 
The only people I’ve heard of washing out of a major’s dispatch indoc training in recent months were internals with no experience and a dispatch license.

That being said, it seems like DL, WN, and UA have had a significant chunk of their new dispatch hires be internal. This isn’t the hardest gig in aviation by any means so it’s not far fetched to think those internals could very well be good dispatchers. In the case of Delta, it seems like they prefer the internal route because they like being able to mold candidates into their idea of what a dispatcher (sorry, Superintendent 😂) should be.

I can’t say whether or not going from regional dx to a mainline crew scheduler job is the right call. On one hand, you’re already moved to that city and have started to build flight benny seniority and retirement for the carrier you wanted. on the other hand, you could be potentially limiting yourself because who knows if/ when you get the green light to go over to dispatch.

Everyone wants to turn and burn their rotation from a regional to something better as soon as they can. As they should. I know it’s been said a thousand times before but personally I’d just stick it out as a regional dispatcher and learn as much as you can. The call with your ticket out of there comes when you least expect it.
 
Bobber said:
I've always been in the camp of building dispatch time as you can take it anywhere. After doing dispatch I wouldn't want to do anything else so you just have to ask yourself what you really want.
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I would agree with this logic; I'm starting in dispatch school now, and left a career at a major to get into this career area. The argument can be made that a CS will make good money at a major, and yes you could get a dispatch spot if it opens up, but you leave other avenues of gaining experience as a dispatcher on the table. I can respect the identifying a company you want to work for, but for me, getting the experience will help close that gap sooner...that's just my .02
 
dxnoob said:
This post Kind of confuses me. So I am looking at either being a regional dispatcher, or a crew scheduler at my CHOICE airline which is a ULCC. The crew scheduling position pays 5$/hr ,more than the regional dispatching position. But overall they seem nice and like a great beginning for dispatching. I will not be a crew scheduler for a regional under any circumstances. However, you make some very valuable points here, networking with the dispatchers, being depressed doing a job I don't like. BUT, I can do it. that's what I'm going to take from your post.

Its a really tough decision, and can be risky, if I mess up or displease management than the time I spent trying to build rapport is wasted.
Click to expand...
if i can offer a point of view from a former leader at an airline. I had an agent who was super responsible, on time, had excellent interactions with coworkers. Had a few slip ups on forgetting to clock in or leaving ID at home. Sometimes life happens. This individual had an incident with GSE and got some follow up on it. His reputation was still incredibly good. Mistakes happen; just own it learn from it. Change your mindset and move on. Don't dwell. Point I'm hoping to make if you truly want this; don't spend any more time posting here to sort it out. Just go do it! This individual wants to pursue something not dx related but wanted a foot in the door to pursue their ultimate goal. Don't think something gets wasted if you make an unintentional mistake..but that's just me.
 
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