Commercial Fixed Wing
Dispatch Dispatcher
Other / Unknown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Company Policy; Weather; Procedure; Human Factors
Had a flight waiting at the gate for the weather to clear. OPS supervisor called and asked why we wanted this flight to push with a T-STORM in progress. I asked who told you to push the flight.They said the [Dispatch Manager] told them to push the flight because the crew is going to be illegal. I advised the ops agent to have the flight stay put. The question is who has operational control? The next question becomes...if the [Dispatch Manager] has not dispatched a flight in over 90 days how can they take operational control when by the company's own policy to be current to dispatch you MUST have worked the desk once in 90 days. 99 % of the [Dispatch Managers] have not dispatched a flight in many years.
Dispatcher believes that the Dispatch Manager is operating outside of company policy when he instructs an operations agent to push back a flight during a thunderstorm because the crew is about to go illegal.