EMB ERJ 135 ER/LR
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
General Release Refused / Aircraft Not Accepted
Aircraft; Human Factors
The aircraft was operating with an inop FMS.  A route was diligently planned that used in-service NAVAIDs; approved routes and remained in-service volumes.  This however left little room to avoid weather enroute.  After the Captain and Dispatcher briefed on the route the Captain began to look at approaches available to land in CVG.  The weather in CVG was VMC and forecast to remain so for over 12 hours.  The Captain contends we were not authorized to conduct the flight with MEL on this city pair due to the following:  none of the instrument approaches in CVG have an IAF that can be identified with an inop FMS.  All approaches say 'radar required.'    The Dispatcher offered to add an alternate that had an approach that met the Captain's requirements but the Captain contends this would be a composite IFR/VFR flight plan.  With no resolution available to satisfy the Captain; the flight was swapped to an inbound aircraft; delayed and continued without incident. The FMS deferral adds more workload than our current staffing can handle.  This should only be able to be applied to move the aircraft to a Maintenance base for repair.  The National Airspace System is now being planned to only handle aircraft that have FMS capability.  This is especially true in the high density Washington DC and NYC areas.  Dispatch does not have training to understand if an aircraft can navigate with no radios and no FMS and still have procedures to safely operate a flight.
Regional jet Captain elects not to accept an aircraft for a flight to CVG due to the FMC being inoperative and all approaches at CVG requiring an FMS or Radar to identify the IAF. This event is related by the Dispatcher involved. An aircraft swap is accomplished to accommodate the Captain and the flight departs late.