Airline dispatchers’ workflow is often described in broad terms like ‘flight planning’ and ‘flight following.’Such high-level descriptions fail to recognize the number and complexity of tasks involved in theseactivities. An ethnographic study was conducted at three US airlines to understand the cognitive workloadinvolved in flight planning. Fuel planning was identified as one of five key flight planning tasks. Fuelplanning was conducted concurrently with other planning and monitoring tasks which often led tointerruptions. Planning fuel was dynamic, with re-calculations required whenever other factors varied. Thisrework increased workload and opportunities for error while reducing efficiency. Beyond route changes,four main factors contributed variability to fuel planning: contingency planning, load planning, pilots, andstation operations. Strategies for managing variability included pattern identification, use of buffers,rounding up, and leveraging software tools. Software design often added workload by forcing dispatchersto attend to low level tasks.
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