TheFlightDispatcher.com

After dispatching tens of thousands of flights, I came to a conclusion that may sound strange at first: modern dispatchers should receive much more IT education than they currently do.

Traditional dispatcher schools are not wrong. Quite the opposite. Meteorology, performance, fuel planning, regulations, flight planning and airspace remain the foundation of our profession. None of that should disappear.

But the world around us changed.

Nowadays, dispatchers spend most of their time interacting with systems rather than drawing routes with pencils on charts. And when something goes wrong, the problem is often not operational, but technical.

How many times did we hear:

"The VPN is down."

"The weather feed is not updating."

"The tracking system froze."

"The server is unavailable."

"IT is looking into it."

And then everybody waits.

Unfortunately, many dispatchers have little understanding of how the systems they depend on actually work. Not because they are incapable of understanding them, but because nobody taught them.

I do not suggest turning dispatchers into software engineers. There are professionals for that. But I believe every dispatcher should possess a certain amount of operational IT knowledge.

Basic networking concepts.

Cloud versus local applications.

Shared drives and permissions.

Data backup principles.

AFTN, AMHS and ACARS data flow.

Navigation databases and AIRAC cycles.

METAR, TAF and NOTAM distribution.

Reading logs and understanding error messages.

Root cause analysis and effective escalation.

Even basic concepts behind APIs, automation and AI.

Because very often, simply understanding where information comes from and how it travels through the system allows you to identify whether the problem is local, company-wide, or somewhere upstream. It can save hours during a busy shift.

Perhaps dispatcher schools should introduce a new subject altogether: Operational Information Systems.

Because aviation itself is changing.

The dispatcher of the future will not only be expected to understand weather, fuel and regulations. He will also be expected to understand the systems that support the operation.

Ironically, many dispatchers are already moving in that direction without realizing it. They troubleshoot software, work with databases, automate repetitive tasks, and increasingly interact with AI tools.

Perhaps the future dispatcher will no longer be just a flight planner.

Perhaps he will become something else.

A hybrid between operational expert, troubleshooter and systems thinker.

And considering how dependent aviation has become on software, that evolution may already be overdue.