Dispatch Dispatcher
Situational Awareness; Time Pressure; Workload
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Flight Cancelled / Delayed
Company Policy; Human Factors; Procedure; Manuals
I was coming off a 5-day break and came into work start time XA:00. This desk is not covered by a midnight shift dispatcher. Under the new dynamic dispatch workload management system; that means there is no pass down from midnight shift; no work sheet set up. Once I got Dispatch View and Sabre FPM started up; I saw that the first 4 flights were scheduled to be released at XA:00; XA:00; XA:01; and XA:10. With no idea what was going on in the National Airspace System and no weather or NOTAMS whatsoever; I began my self-brief. As a result; those first 4 flights were released late. I didn't manage to release the XA:10 flight until XA:55. I'm not quite sure how I am supposed to be able to sit down with no information and start releasing flights. A thorough self-brief is required to safely and legally begin dispatching flights. With no briefing from a midnight dispatcher that is a 15 minute procedure. This automatically meant that those first 4 flights were going to be released late. I am worried that management will be pressuring dispatchers to release unsafe and illegal flight releases based on an unrealistically heavy work load from the very start of the shift.
A Dispatcher reported flight releases were delayed due to being scheduled as soon as shift started and without a proper briefing.