About 21,000 aircraft dispatchers at 47 airlines in the United States have more venues than ever for sharing safety concerns and lessons learned in the course of their daily work. Centralized safety data collection and analysis systems easily enable their perspectives of aviation risks, threats and human factors to be compared with narratives from the flight crew and air traffic controllers involved in a common event during flight operations, whether in commercial air transport or business aviation (see “Voluntary Safety Report by an Aircraft Dispatcher”).
For example, they can submit safety reports to their airline’s aviation safety action program (ASAP), where an event review committee will study the issues in a confidential setting and follow through with risk mitigations as required. They can present or informally discuss concerns and events in forums such as annual safety meetings of the Airline Dispatchers Federation.
The Natio…
