Commercial Fixed Wing
Dispatch Dispatcher
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General None Reported / Taken
Company Policy; Procedure
First; I apologize because nothing was wrong with the flights I operated on this day.  However; I had read the cold weather correction charts and a while later my captain called to inquire if he was to divert if the temperature was at -17C or below. His reference was to the approach plate indicating you have to apply the cold weather correction chart and relay that information to ATC.  He said he had not been trained. Temperature at destination was -15C and the outlook was to warm up.  Thus; no issue on this day. I immediately called an on duty chief pilot to get feedback on this problem.  The gentleman I spoke to was the duty chief pilot. He concurred that the flight crews were not trained and that ops engineering has not given any feedback on how to apply the chart and we do not have and instrument approach when the temperature is at or below the temperature outlined. All mountain cities have a different temperature. There was zero information or guidance to the dispatch floor. None of the dispatchers here that day had ever heard of this problem. I relayed this information to the incoming dispatcher. Needless to say this Desk is set up for failure. Many stations are set up on it. A couple are critical airports. Turbulence is daily occurrence and flying coast to coast sets up for possible problems every day. The workload is not manageable. Too many releases and flights. I asked for help on this given day and I was told there is nobody else answering the phone for overtime. My response is if we had more Desks already lowering the workload overall we would not be trying to call in 20-25 people on a daily basis when there are weather issues. I do not want to blur the lines of the two issues. Workload is a problem. The lack of information given to us on these new operational temperature limits is horrible. After I came into work I immediately looked at the destination temperature. It was -25C and I proceeded to brief the dispatcher working that airport of what I uncovered earlier so that he could pursue it further. I also had a discussion with two of our Center Managers so that they could continue the dialogue with the flight department and get us an operational guideline. There is a lack of urgency. I do not know if it's the flight department or ops engineering or any other department that is involved. It could be a [company] problem in that they added it without communicating it to the carriers. [company] added these temperature statements to the plates at the beginning of the summer. Who knew or had knowledge of it inside the company at that time I cannot answer. I do know this the lack of urgency to get an operational answer is lacking. Several days since the temperature has been below the minimum on the plate. Guidance to the flight crews and on how to apply the chart will help avoid diversions. The event occurred because of a discussion between a captain and myself on a what if scenario of the temperature was below the minimum. Nothing was wrong on this given day; however; trying to get answers and guidance has been lacking. As a supposed world leader in aviation we should be communicated with when [company] makes changes to the plates.  Upon making changes that are as critical as this change there has to be a better operational awareness on how it affects the airlines.  This may have been done. If it was then whoever was involved here dropped the ball.  There is so much information in aviation that is plastered all over the place in different books and manuals that you cannot keep up to it. Throw in the heavy workload and it is not a good balance. In the world I would like to see for aviation is everything condensed into one book. Right now we have so many places the information could get placed that it can lost.  I should able to put my cursor over a city and have it highlight current weather/TAF/field conditions/special ops pages from [company]/company-imposed restrictions. Something I could demonstrate more than I can write but more needs to be done to combine all the various information more efficiently.
An airline Dispatcher reports inadequate company policy for delineating required procedures for changing destination field conditions; especially required aircraft landing performance calculations during extremely cold conditions.