Performance throught intimidation

20-25 flights is pretty typical at the regionals...perhaps a small 135 operation would be a good fit for you.


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20-25 flights is pretty typical at the regionals...perhaps a small 135 operation would be a good fit for you.


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I wouldnt mind the workload I was just surprised at how the higher ups handled workload issues.
 
I was looking over ASRS reports on this boring thursday night and found one that was pretty shocking. According to the report, the chief pilot reportedly pressured the flight crew into flying what was pretty much a unairworthy aircraft. What are your takes on this? Have you ever had situations like this and how as dispatchers did you resolve them?

Narrative: 1

MEL 33-1-XY was effective. Aircraft flew for nine days with this MEL, and transited at least eight Maintenance bases in the previous five days. In Captain and First Officer opinions, remaining lighting system lights may not have been sufficient to clearly illuminate all required instruments, controls, and other devices for which it is provided. Also, lighting configuration and intensity from alternate sources may not have been acceptable to the flight crew. Dispatch agreed with Captain on these concerns, and provided link to Maintenance.

After directing Captain in several unsuccessful circuit breaker resets, and without advising Captain and Dispatch, Maintenance brought in Chief Pilot on Call. Chief Pilot did not provide safer alternatives for Crew to consider in operating the aircraft. Rather, Chief Pilot said Crew could be replaced with somebody who was willing to fly the aircraft one more leg. Chief Pilot also stated that nine other Captains operated that aircraft, and implied I should, as well. After thoroughly evaluating cockpit lighting conditions during engine start and taxi, Crew decided it could safely operate aircraft. Crew used overhead flood light in combination with bulkhead lighting to operate the area affected by MEL, however, lighting in many areas was very marginal.

Narrative: 2

Aircraft flood lights physically do not illuminate the FMC keyboards requiring the use of hand held flash lights, creating a safety issue during critical phases of flight. Turning the flood lights up to full bright in order to provide enough and sufficient illumination for the pedestal was so bright it created night vision and glare issues requiring the further use of flash lights and said safety issues during critical phases of flight. The threat here is the Maintenance on Call person and the Chief Pilot on Call.

The Captain called Dispatch to work through this issue and MEL. The Dispatcher brought Maintenance into their conversation, who was unable to resolve the issue. At that point Maintenance hung up, and the Captain and the Dispatcher continued to talk. Then the Captain's phone rang while talking to the Dispatcher; it was the Chief Pilot on Call. The Maintenance on Call person (without advising the Captain or the Dispatcher) took it upon himself to bring in the Pilot on Call to pressure, bully and all but brow-beat the Captain into agreeing the aircraft was ok to fly.

On Call [with] Maintenance person circumventing the process by going VFR direct to the Chief Pilot on Call, he directly affected, in negative manner, the ability of the Captain and the Dispatcher to properly and thoroughly work through this safety issue and MEL (which may have eventually led them to the Chief Pilot on Call anyway). By abruptly bringing the Chief Pilot into the conversation, in mid-thought process, completely destroyed their safety thought process of working through an issue as professionals.

Narrative: 3

Got call from Captain saying when landing at ZZZ he felt that due to MEL 33-1-XY (the control stand lights being out) the Lighting configuration and intensity was now unacceptable to the flight crew. His reasoning was that due to the next leg being conducted at night they would need to use the flood lights to illuminate the center control stand and the reflection of those lights would cause excessive glare in the cockpit. He was therefore not accepting the aircraft. At this point I got Maintenance Control on the line and the Captain explained the situation to him. After questioning pilot for a few min and trying to reset a few breakers he informed him that this MEL has been on this aircraft for days and no other crew had rejected the aircraft. He also informed the Captain that this MEL would drop dead tonight and it would big a pain because aircraft was in ZZZ. The Maintenance controller then said he wanted to talk it over with a few other controllers so he put us on hold. After about 3min we were blindly transferred to Chief Pilot (CP) (CP already knew the whole story, I'm assuming Maintenance Control filled him in) I want to point out that neither the Captain or I requested to talk to the CP. The CP said exactly what Maintenance Control said "9 crews have taken this aircraft over the past few days and none of them had a problem". Captain again explained why he thought it would be unsafe to take this aircraft. The CP repeated what he said before. Captain again said no. CP then said "if Captain did not take aircraft he would get with SOD and scheduling and find a crew that would" both of these statements, in my opinion were made with a very aggressive tone toward the Captain. The CP did say "it's up to [the discretion] and Captain" but then would immediately follow it with one of the above comments. At this point the Captain put CP and myself on hold for a min then came back on and said "how bout if we push the gate, get away from the terminal, and turn the flood lights on" At this point I reminded the Captain that; with me, Maintenance, and the CP (until now) he had felt the aircraft was unacceptable to him. He said they talked it over and said they would push and check the lighting and if it was unacceptable they would return to the gate. I asked if he was sure this is ok with him now, he said it was. I said that would meet the MEL proviso and was good with me. He pushed, lighting was good with him and he took off. My safety concerns with this flight were two. 1. Maintenance should not be going around Dispatch and the Captain to the CP. Then after talking to the CP by himself transfer us over in the blind. 2. I felt the CP may have influenced the pilot's decision solely by his statements and aggressive tone.

Synopsis

A flight crew and Dispatcher reported that the flight crew were pressured into flying a B737 with inadequate cockpit lighting.


This is pretty much a flight crew call. The dispatcher and MX control don't have much say in a chapter 33 MEL like that one. It is not like an exterior wing light where it's cut and dry at least one has to be burning on both wings at night. Interior cockpit lights the MEL at 3 different airlines I have worked for the MEL is clear it says "must be acceptable to flight crew" Now I have seen the flight crew balk at an MEL like the one you describe and we have sometimes got the flight duty officer involved but in the end the pilot virtually always gets his way at least where I have worked as it should be. At my previous carrier there were actually MEL's in the union contract that were no questions asked if it was refused like APU, Generators and auto pressurization to name a few.
 
Yes but the issue is that the chief pilot influenced the PICs decision making by intimidating him that "if Captain did not take aircraft he would get with SOD and scheduling and find a crew that would". The PIC should be allowed to make the decision they need to without a CP pressuring them to fly what they believed to be an airworthy aircraft.
 
Bottom line, moving the equipment tends to outweigh other factors and its not an unusual situation. The real world is less than ideal and when you make decisions that slow the process of moving the equipment you will incur some wrath from operations and management, so you better have a very good reason for it. Being "in the weeds" and unable to keep up with your workload when others can, and refusing to operate an aircraft that several other crews have is going to piss some people off and they are going to react accordingly. That's just a fact of the business. So at that point it depends on whether you have the stones and legitimate reasons to stand your ground or not.
 
Yes but the issue is that the chief pilot influenced the PICs decision making by intimidating him that "if Captain did not take aircraft he would get with SOD and scheduling and find a crew that would". The PIC should be allowed to make the decision they need to without a CP pressuring them to fly what they believed to be an airworthy aircraft.

Welcome to airline flying. This is ops normal. There’s what SHOULD happen, and there’s what DOES happen.
 
I worked with a XA00Z start time. At XC30Z I identified a workload safety issue, where I would have 20-22 flights out at the same time. This is an excessive number of flights to be flight following while also having 4-5 more flight plans to release in the next hour. As the Dispatcher I took steps to maintain the safety of the flights under my operational control and I notified the IOC Director, Sector Manager, and Chief Dispatcher of this workload issue. I spoke with 3 Captains on the phone and instructed them to remain at the gate until released for departure due to the pending workload issue. At XD10Z, another Dispatcher offered to take some of my flights. I sent him a total of 4 flights, 3 of which I was holding on the ground due to workload issues.

At approximately, XD30Z the IOC Director on Duty, came to my desk to intimidate me about doing the high workload in the future. He stated that it was a VFR day and that no one else ever complains about the workload on this desk. He also stated that he cannot be moving flights off this Desk every day. He then proceeded to ask me if I needed "additional training." I believe this visit occurred to intimidate me to do the high workload in the future and to not ask for help. I believe [my company] is in violation of CFR 121.395 at this time and immediate action is needed by the FAA and company Management to prevent an aircraft incident or accident. Reduce the number of flights on the Dispatch Desks.

I am somewhat familiar with this report. I think the root cause of this event is the fact at this airline almost none of the managers have company dispatch experience and many dont have any dispatch experience. Flights are just numbers to them and they really dont have much of an idea what goes into getting all that work done every day. The number of flights may be a little high but the real problem is the workload is unbalanced and concentrated in small periods of time. Yeah, 25-30 domestic flights on a 9 hour shift isnt that high but 30 domestic flights in a two hour time frame is. Some desks have a manageable load, some have light load and others extremely high.
 
I am somewhat familiar with this report. I think the root cause of this event is the fact at this airline almost none of the managers have company dispatch experience and many dont have any dispatch experience. Flights are just numbers to them and they really dont have much of an idea what goes into getting all that work done every day. The number of flights may be a little high but the real problem is the workload is unbalanced and concentrated in small periods of time. Yeah, 25-30 domestic flights on a 9 hour shift isnt that high but 30 domestic flights in a two hour time frame is. Some desks have a manageable load, some have light load and others extremely high.

can you give can you give us more details on this report or was it pretty well covered?
 
there was also another report that I saw where a dispatcher was admonished for delaying a flight without approval from upper management however at the time they were unavailable.

Narrative: 1

At the start of shift, I began familiarizing myself with the current weather and its patterns, known ATC issues, taking pass-down briefings and analyzing future workload for the morning shift I was responsible for. Due to forecasted TS from the Ohio Valley thru the Tennessee basin and an excessively high workload on desks, I submitted a help message to my supervisors. The chief dispatcher on duty personally visited my desk to relay a message from the Director: He was personally busy, and would not be able to respond to the messages at this time. However, only 1 person was on the callout list. A mass broadcast to all employees could not be accomplished until 75 minutes prior to a desk being open (A desk was never opened).

[My] desk had 18 flights departing in the [scheduled] hour. The majority of these flights were either to stations with weather directly impacting/forecasted to impact, or were scheduled to cross the line of weather. [Three hours before], I called the Director to talk about the morning operations. He stated that he was still busy and had no one to call in for help. I relayed to him that I had a plan, and he said he would be down to talk to me about it. More than 2 hours went by, and I felt compelled to place the plan into action by delaying 14 flights in order to maintain operation control and safety. [The Director] immediately came to my desk, and sat directly behind me. I had a high volume of phone calls due to pilots wanting weather briefings, releases and stations trying to get fuel loads for uncompleted releases. Once I had a small break between phone calls, [he] started lecturing that I was in the wrong and violated the Dispatch Manual by not coordinating delays over 45 minutes with management. He threatened that a meeting will be in my future, and to not delay any flights without talking to my supervisors. This conversation took place at my desk while trying to release flights, flight follow and handle an extremely high workload with numerous phone calls. Our Safety Management System is in place, and I felt that I operated in the yellow margin for most of the night.

Workload on dispatchers in the office is encroaching on the safe operations of the hundreds of flights we are expected to release and follow. [One] desk had 54 flights to release and follow, [another] had 57 flight and [a third] had 58 flights. Seventy-five percent flights traversed or landed in the areas with major weather concerns. Lower the workload to a more manageable and safe load.

Synopsis

Air carrier Dispatcher reported a very high workload and management pressure interfered with his duties.
 
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