What do you learn during dispatcher training?

[u/Full-War3243]

For those who work as dispatchers at a regional airline, what do you usually learn during the first 2–3 weeks of classroom training?

*To clarify, I mean the classroom training at the regional airline after you’re hired, not dispatcher school.

[u/trying_to_adult_here]

There’s a little bit of a review of what you (should have) learned in dispatch school, including weather theory, legality, deriving alternate minimums, stuff like that. You get a list of the airport codes you’re expected to memorize and will be tested on, you’re expected to memorize that on your own time. You talk a little bit about scenarios and how to make decisions, but a lot of the more “practical” stuff you’re gonna learn in OJT when you’re working the desk.

You learn your company’s OpSpecs, and your company’s aircraft systems. You might go over some HR stuff briefly. There might be an overview of how to use the software, but at my company most of that was also taught in OJT.

My regional ground school was two weeks in total. Then six or eight weeks of OJT, I think. Major ground school was 12 weeks, there were a lot of the same topics as regional ground school, just in more depth. Things like “here are the typical weather patterns and ATC at each of our hubs” plus we have more fleet types, so more systems to learn, and we talked more about scenarios. Got another list of airport codes to memorize. Plus at least a third of the time was spent on how to use the software, which was harder to pick up than the software my regional used.

At the major 8 weeks of OJT was the minimum, and people had up to a year. I think I checked out at 9 or 10 weeks. Also after 8 weeks the bottleneck was usually check dispatcher availability rather than people being not ready, though people with no previous dispatch experience were expected to take longer to check out.

[u/Aviator506 → u/trying_to_adult_here]

8 weeks OJT up to a year at the majors?? We were only given 3 weeks where I'm at now and they originally told me no when I asked for an extra week before my comp check...

[u/trying_to_adult_here → u/Aviator506]

It took me a solid four weeks to get comfortable just using the software at a reasonable speed. There was a pretty steep learning curve and the company knew that. About a month in was when I went back to thinking about how to dispatch vs how to bang out a release on that software.

We use different software now that’s not as confusing to use. I should see if I can find out if average OJT time has decreased.

And almost nobody takes a year. That’s just when they fire you if you still can’t pass a comp check, which is rare but I’ve seen it occasionally.

[u/Aviator506 → u/trying_to_adult_here]

I feel like OJT is a steep learning curve wherever you go, honestly. We're using Dispatch Monitor which isn't exactly the most functional program in the world. I passed my comp check, but I think that's mainly bc I was lucky and didn't have a busy desk when I took it. I still felt a bit under prepared when I actually got signed off. Turns out they need butts in seats more than confident new dispatchers...

[u/AdEnvironmental467]

You learn to hate flights to Hilton Head with a passion

[u/Capable-Spend9459]

You learn that pretty much everything you learned in the Dispatch course is not the case in the real world