Narrative:

There were low ceilings and visibility in two major airports. Airport 1 was down to 1/4 mile and needed to be monitored constantly for legality. There was a multitude of issues that created task saturation and safety issues starting with the ongoing computer issues with dispatch monitor giving incorrect and unsafe altitudes for route of flight. It takes up to eleven attempts and playing around with numbers to come up with a safe altitude taking up valuable time. Issues with the flight planning computer crashing and problems with releases not showing up at the gate. In the morning there are two dispatchers working six desks so there is little back up in case conditions get bad; also the last dispatcher of the morning not coming in at xa:45 local means spread out flights for everyone until that time. Airport 1 went into flow in mid morning and that means the extra burden of sending ACARS to the crews. A deluge of calls from flight crews about their new departure times and having to deal with the delay program and monitoring taxi times. It's impossible to do all of this and properly flight follow. Another problem we have is broken aircraft causing multiple swaps and having to redo flight releases. Two dispatchers this week have sent e-mails to computer support about altitudes and program functionality and were told nothing they can do for either and even asked the dispatcher to contact flight planning program support. I didn't know technical support was part of our job!we need our computers and programs to work properly and better support when we have computer issues. We need every desk to be a full time desk with an earlier start time and thus the need for more dispatchers. We need more timely repair of our aircraft and nav loads done on time so we don't have to spend the time building non-rnav routes when this could be avoided. We can no longer have safety taking a backseat to the companies bottom line.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air Carrier Dispatcher laments the poor functionality of the dispatch planning program and insufficient staffing during high workload times.

Narrative: There were low ceilings and visibility in two major airports. Airport 1 was down to 1/4 mile and needed to be monitored constantly for legality. There was a multitude of issues that created task saturation and safety issues starting with the ongoing computer issues with dispatch monitor giving incorrect and unsafe altitudes for route of flight. It takes up to eleven attempts and playing around with numbers to come up with a safe altitude taking up valuable time. Issues with the flight planning computer crashing and problems with releases not showing up at the gate. In the morning there are two Dispatchers working six desks so there is little back up in case conditions get bad; also the last Dispatcher of the morning not coming in at XA:45 local means spread out flights for everyone until that time. Airport 1 went into flow in mid morning and that means the extra burden of sending ACARS to the crews. A deluge of calls from flight crews about their new departure times and having to deal with the delay program and monitoring taxi times. It's impossible to do all of this and properly flight follow. Another problem we have is broken aircraft causing multiple swaps and having to redo flight releases. Two Dispatchers this week have sent e-mails to computer support about altitudes and program functionality and were told nothing they can do for either and even asked the Dispatcher to contact flight planning program support. I didn't know technical support was part of our job!We need our computers and programs to work properly and better support when we have computer issues. We need every desk to be a full time desk with an earlier start time and thus the need for more Dispatchers. We need more timely repair of our aircraft and nav loads done on time so we don't have to spend the time building non-rnav routes when this could be avoided. We can no longer have safety taking a backseat to the companies bottom line.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.