Dispatch Dispatcher
Fatigue; Situational Awareness; Workload
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Flight Crew Took Evasive Action
Human Factors; Procedure; Company Policy; Staffing
Today from XA00L to XI00L I was taking my System Transition desk check. At XE50L the Head Dispatcher on duty walked down to the conference room where my desk check was in progress; and informed me that I have been junior assigned for a XQ00L shift tonight. This puts me in a double quick turn situation because the Company has also scheduled me for a XI00L shift tomorrow. It takes me approximately 1 hour to get home from work. I came home from work after the desk check and attempted to get some sleep to prepare for the XQ00L shift. I have been unable to get any useful sleep thus far. I am extremely tired already from the exhausting desk check. I would not be able to safely exercise operational control as a dispatcher tonight for the shift I was junior manned for. I would likely be even more fatigued for the XI00L shift tomorrow the Company expects me to work on the double quick turn. Not only now am I being junior manned or threatened to be junior manned every single weekend of my days off; but now I am also being expected to work 3 full dispatch shifts in 2-day periods. Expecting dispatchers and flight crews to report for multiple consecutive quick-turn duty assignments is not putting safety first.
A Dispatcher completing a training exercise was told he was assigned a dispatch shift eight hours after this training completion; but he complained because he needed an hour each way to and from home. The following day he had another shift after an eight hour break leading to continuous and unsafe fatigue.