Is Flight Following Worth It?

[Utah]

I think I might get offered a job as a flight follower. The starting pay is $16 an hour.

I don't have any dispatch/flight following experience. I'm concerned about my ability to get the next job after this. If I stay at this flight following place a couple years, will flight following experience help me at all with getting on with a major airline? Are the major airlines going to say "Well, what we're looking for is someone that has actual dispatch experience. Sorry, you're not what we're looking for."

Will flight following help me in anyway move forward with an aircraft dispatch career?

 

[manniax]

It would help to know what the flight following job entailed, but it is true that major airlines do usually want people who have actual Part 121 dispatching experience. The pay sounds decent though. Experince in such a job probably would put you ahead of the pack in applying for a job at a regional airline.

 

[izanti]

If anything its a pretty sure way to get noticed by some regionals... but you would most likely take a pay cut going to them in my experience.

 

[----****]

What type of company is it?

I ask because there are some flight following jobs that are basically worthless. Let me give you two examples.

1) Back in the early/mid 90's BAX Global was doing very well and Air Transport Intl was their main carrier. ATI was asked by BAX to set up an OCC in Toledo @ TOL airport for the BAX flights. This was a disaster, as it was was told to me, because of one key flaw. Who had operation control on ATI aircraft? Long story short, the BAX OCC and ATI's OCC didn't mesh because even though ATI had operational control it was vague and screwed up (e.g. BAX tired to actually have OC). They got rid of that part of BAX OCC w/in the year as I was told.

2) I actually just found this out myself but Direct Air had flight followers even though they had like 5 airlines flying the flights. So what was the point of the Direct Air flight follower? They had no influence on actual flight operations because they didn't have operation control. I would assume they could offer "suggestions" but nothing more.

 

[kidjudge]

IMO Flight Following is not worth it. I worked at a Helicopter Company in PIT and I am an Aircraft Dispatcher. You need to remember that in a 121 Operation that you and the pilot must agree when you are a Flight Follower the Pilot has the say so and you are there as an advisor nothing more or less. I also worked for ABX Air and although it is 121 Supp there still is no requirement to have dispatchers even though the pilots respected you more at ABX (probably because you are doing their work for them) you are still not required

 

[thewaffles]

If the job is there, I'd take it to get the experience while still applying for a dispatching position. If you're applying for dispatching positions, it would certainly look better to have "flight follower" on a resume than "grocery clerk"...