Commercial Fixed Wing
Dispatch Dispatcher
Workload
Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural FAR; Inflight Event / Encounter Weather / Turbulence
General None Reported / Taken
Staffing; Weather; Human Factors
Today after turnover I had 23-26 flights in the air at one time while also having about 6 flights that were out of the gate but not off the ground. During the time that I had all these flights; I had 2 flights inbound to ZZZ. I failed to notice that ZZZ's METAR was showing FZRA. Per our FOM; Operations are prohibited in moderate and heavy freezing rain. At the time I noticed; [one of the flights] was just about to touch down. It was too late to notify the crew about it. I did notify [the next flight] however they were very close to landing as well and ended up landing without further coordination with Dispatch. I feel this could have been prevented and these flights could have been diverted and avoided a potentially unsafe situation had Dispatch not been so overloaded with flights. Our workload far exceeds what any person can safely handle. It is nearly impossible to adequately flight follow when we have 23+ airborne flights. Our workload has increased substantially with every department in the [Operations Control] being short staffed. We are taking a high number of phone calls because [Maintenance Control] and the [Operations Control] manager do not answer their phones because they are too busy and short staffed. We are constantly having to call stations and check on gates because they do not have radios and do not answer crews. All of this has compounded to make Dispatch busier than ever before and we are having a very hard time safely monitoring all flights.Every department in the [Operations Control] needs to hire more people. We have added more and more flights over the past months to years and the staffing levels have been stagnant or even decreased. The Dispatch Manager has said many times that we have hired people and we have... however we have also had people quit. Today we have [fewer dispatchers than last year] and we are doing about 120 more flights per day.
Air Carrier Dispatcher reported short staffing and high workload was a factor in the failure to advise two flights about freezing rain at their destination.