Commercial Fixed Wing
Dispatch Dispatcher
Workload; Time Pressure; Human-Machine Interface; Communication Breakdown
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR
General None Reported / Taken
Human Factors; Procedure; Environment - Non Weather Related
This flight was planned on a route that went through ZZZZ.  In my pre-flight planning process; I checked the enroute NOTAMs by loading all the enroute FIR boundaries and then using 'control-F' and searching the enroute NOTAMs for applicable airways.  Today; there were no such hits when performing this NOTAM checking method.  Unfortunately; there was a NOTAM for ZZZZ that had been issued just before I arrived for work:...DUE TO COVID-19...ATS WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE. ATS CONTINGENCY PLAN(AIC A11/18) FOR ZZZZ1 FIR ACT.                                                                                     The flight had been airborne for some time; but was still in ZZZZ2 airspace when the crew advised me that they were being re-routed out of ZZZZ airspace - the re-route was minimal and after considerable effort (due to non-existent or out-of-date info in AIR for ZZZZ and ZZZZ3) I was finally able to speak with ZZZZ3 ATC and obtain an expected route through their airspace; and then I was able to advise the crew of the routing.  The amount of en-route FIR boundary NOTAMs is daunting - impossible to read these for every international flight --- therefore using the 'Control-F' to search for applicable airways allows the Dispatcher to quickly determine if there are any en-route implications to the flight.  Of course; if there are no associated airways with a NOTAM as in the case of the situation affecting this flight; then pertinent closures can be missed.  In addition; since the crews do not receive a copy of the FIR boundary NOTAMs; this scenario leaves the Dispatcher as the single point of failure.Be smarter when it comes to FIR boundary NOTAMs.  Utilize a resource like 'SmartNotam' to weed through all the FIR boundary NOTAMs and then provide both the crew and the dispatcher a condensed list of applicable FIR boundary NOTAMs to read and decipher.
Dispatcher reported the flight was re-routed because ATC was closed due to COVID-19.