coopdogyo From United States of America, joined Jan 2010, 189 posts, RR: 0 Posted (3 years 1 week 2 days ago) and read 4351 times:
Today I was taking a tour of the Alaska Airlines flight operations and training center. We flew the crj-700 and 737-400 simulators, we also got to check out their flight attendant training area and learned to open the doors of the plane as well as slide down the emergency slide and off the wings. Our other stop was at Alaska's flight operations center. Where they schedule the crew and maintenance as well as keep track of their planes in the air. At Alaska this whole process is run from a single large room. My question is at other carriers are all these operations combined? Also it seemed like each of the dispatchers were covering a different geographic region such as flights to Hawaii or transcon at other airlines is this run the same way? Alaska also had a guy keeping track of congestion at major airports such as ORD and ERW. My question is do they do this at other airlines and if so how can have some one monitoring this help to avoid delays?
SDF880 From United States of America, joined Apr 2007, 124 posts, RR: 0 Reply 1, posted (3 years 1 week 1 day 23 hours ago) and read 4332 times:
Hello, yes the airlines do have similar set-up in almost all cases. Usually dispatch, aircraft routing, maintenance control, and crew scheduling are set up in a main office or as most call it OCC or SOCC/ system operations control center. Some larger airlines also may have a meterology department as well. The main training center may or may not be in the same complex or even same city as the SOC. The larger airlines I have worked for all did geographic regions of the US or world if international flights were run. I believe there is still one major that is set up to dispatch by specific fleet types but most train the dispatchers on all fleet types. Most larger operations also have a ATC corrdinator or ATC desk and that helps keep the flow of fast changing information going to the dispatchers and supervisors. Once an hour or as required on bad days there is a telecon where most airlines have the ATC or designated rep call in along with ATC from the centers and busier regions like NY tracon and company meteroligists join in to discuss the next hour of operations in the country and special items during the day. I'm kind of broad brushing things here I'm sure some of the others here will add some other items and information.
Goldenshield From United States of America, joined Jan 2001, 5437 posts, RR: 12 Reply 2, posted (3 years 1 week 1 day 9 hours ago) and read 4134 times:
SDF put it right in general terms. The main purpose of the SOC is to keep the airline running, no matter what. Dispatchers manage the actual flights. Many airlines have fleet/system coordinators to manage a given geographical area, or fleet type. Crew scheduling will take care of future crew needs, and there will also be some sort of crew support desk to handle immediate needs, like rerouting a crew to work another flight. Also, there will be maintenance control, which manages the immediate MX needs of an aircraft, like giving resolutions to crews that don't require a mechanic coming out, to issuing MELs, and also coordinating MX for issues that require a mechanic.
It's a simple description, and really just the tip of the iceburg.
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dispatchguy From United States of America, joined Jan 2006, 1185 posts, RR: 2 Reply 3, posted (3 years 1 week 1 hour ago) and read 3941 times:
Quoting SDF880 (Reply 1): Some larger airlines also may have a meterology department as well.
DL still has their metro department, having imported a lot of folks from NWA. AAL got rid of their weather department, and subcontracts it out to WNI Weathernews - who is staffed with a lot of ex-AAL Dial-AA-Forecast dudes. UAL also subcontracts their metro department out as well.
Quoting coopdogyo (Thread starter): Also it seemed like each of the dispatchers were covering a different geographic region such as flights to Hawaii or transcon at other airlines is this run the same way?
Yes, for example at DL, there are two sides of the huge OCC room - domestic and international. Domestic dispatchers just might work say Florida northbounds to CVG and JFK, and another dude working Florida northbounds to ATL. One guy might just work JFK-westbound transcons, one guy might work SLC-rocky mountains (out and back), one guy might work ATL-west coast; you get the idea.
International is setup the same way, for example, when I was in DL Flight Control, desk 35 afternoons worked all the ATL-Paris, a JFK Paris, a JFK-DUB (or SNN, cant recall), the CVG-Paris, an ATL-FRA, an ATL-ATH, so on and so on, about 9 flights altogether. Desk 39 worked everything to/from the Pacific - so Atlanta-Tokyo, Atlanta-Shanghai, Seoul, Hawaii and Alaska, I'm sure Sydney now as well.
Hit youtube and search on Delta OCC to see what the Delta OCC room looks like now...
e38 From United States of America, joined May 2008, 231 posts, RR: 0 Reply 4, posted (3 years 5 days 4 hours ago) and read 3821 times:
At the company I work for, dispatchers are trained to work all fleet types and their realm of responsibility while on duty is divided up based on "city pairs."
woodreau From United States of America, joined Sep 2001, 890 posts, RR: 7 Reply 5, posted (3 years 5 days ago) and read 3771 times:
Also the airlines also have contingency plans in the event their main flight operations center is disabled. For example, American has a secondary location for their Operations Center and a contingency plan in place to phase in/transfer the all the functions of Operations to the secondary location in the event their primary site at the AA campus is disabled.
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goldenshield From United States of America, joined Jan 2001, 5437 posts, RR: 12 Reply 7, posted (3 years 4 days 14 hours ago) and read 3711 times:
Quoting bjorn14 (Reply 6): how many flights does a dispatcher handle at any given time? During the shift?
Depends on the airline, staffing, and contract requirements.
My airline tends to aim for the 50's per shift, and the actual number of flights at a given time that I watch varies on stage length of each flight, but typical is between 3 and 15.
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RoseFlyer From United States of America, joined Feb 2004, 8739 posts, RR: 52 Reply 8, posted (3 years 4 days 12 hours ago) and read 3678 times:
The airline I use to work for set it up by fleet types. There would be controllers for each fleet or sometimes combined fleet. The whole operation is massive. There are over 100 people involved in the direct operation. Certain desks handle certain functions.
At United, they have their operation control center at the company headquarters near O'Hare, however that will be moving to the Sears/Willis Tower next year as the company sells off its land. Some of the training as you suggested is in an adjacent building which is their training center. However other training equipment for flight operations is in Denver.
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