Commercial Fixed Wing
Dispatch Dispatcher
Situational Awareness; Time Pressure; Distraction; Confusion; Communication Breakdown; Troubleshooting; Workload
ATC Issue All Types; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
Air Traffic Control Issued Advisory / Alert; Flight Crew Became Reoriented; Flight Crew Took Evasive Action; General Work Refused
Procedure; Weather
Weather was scattered convection from IND east affecting arrivals into NY/DC metropolitan. The dispatcher I was relieving was said they've never experienced a desk like this; with the sheer number of reroutes affecting their flights and the number of aircraft in the air at one time needing attention. I have worked these desks in the past; but coming into a situation like today; is no easy task. I took the desk over; immediately had airborne reroutes; off gate reroutes; holding; requests to change alternate; ride report and cell top requests. Almost every flight destined for NY metropolitans had 1; if not 2 airborne reroutes. During all this; my first release was due shortly with several more to follow. There is no time to release flights when there is weather or the absurd number of ATC advisories published. We are currently on ATC advisory #193 for today. That's 193 separate ATC advisories that require your attention to see if they apply to your flights. I had 16 flights in the air when I took the desk over. I diverted within 90 minutes and reported to the MDO I would not be able to release my flights. They removed 3 flights from my desk and I was still struggling to properly flight follow and release.
A Dispatcher reported major weather disruptions in the New York and Washington DC areas caused his flights arriving into those areas to overload him making it impossible to release some of his flight.