Top 12 Aircraft Dispatcher Skills to Put on Your Resume

In the fast-paced, high-stakes world of aviation, an aircraft dispatcher sits at the crossroads of safety, timing, and teamwork. Spotlighting the 12 core skills on your resume shows you know how to stitch together flight operations, talk clearly with crews and ground teams, and keep flights on track when conditions shift.

Aircraft Dispatcher Skills

1. Flight Planning
2. Weather Analysis
3. Jeppesen Charts
4. NOTAM Interpretation
5. Air Traffic Control Coordination
6. Risk Assessment
7. Crew Scheduling
8. Sabre AirCentre
9. Emergency Procedures
10. Fuel Management
11. ARINCDirect
12. Regulatory Compliance

1. Flight Planning

Flight planning means crafting a practical route and strategy that balances weather, traffic, performance, fuel, MEL/CDL limits, and safety margins. Tight, thorough, adaptable.

Why It's Important

It underpins safety, legality, and efficiency. The plan sets fuel, routing, alternates, payload limits, and time buffers, and it coordinates with ATC constraints so the flight launches ready, not hopeful.

How to Improve Flight Planning Skills

Sharper planning comes from smart tools, discipline, and constant feedback.

1. Leverage modern planning tools: Use approved flight planning systems with real-time weather, traffic programs, and performance to refine routes and fuel.

2. Stay weather-aware: Track forecasts, SIGMETs, turbulence, convection, icing, and winds aloft throughout preflight and day-of operations.

3. Keep learning: Maintain recurrent training on regulations, ETOPS/EDTO, drift-down, equal-time points, and navigation rules.

4. Partner with pilots: Align plans with aircraft performance, crew preference, and operational realities. Two-way input avoids surprises.

5. Apply risk controls: Bake mitigations into the plan—extra fuel, route variations, alternates with better ceiling/visibility, escape routes.

Do this well and disruptions shrink, margins grow, crews trust the plan.

How to Display Flight Planning Skills on Your Resume

2. Weather Analysis

Weather analysis means interpreting aviation weather data—terminal forecasts, en route hazards, upper air winds, convective and icing products—to make safe, efficient decisions before and during flight.

Why It's Important

Bad reads lead to bad days. Solid analysis avoids hazards, trims delays, and limits fuel burn by choosing routes and altitudes that work with the sky, not against it.

How to Improve Weather Analysis Skills

Precision beats guesswork.

1. Use integrated aviation weather suites: Combine radar, satellite, model guidance, and pilot reports with aviation-focused products for a full picture.

2. Refresh meteorology fundamentals: Fronts, lapse rates, jet structure, mountain waves, fog types—know the mechanisms, not just the colors on a map.

3. Engage experts when needed: Coordinate with in-house or contracted meteorology support for tricky setups.

4. Fold weather into planning tools: Tie winds, temperature, and convective forecasts directly into route, fuel, and altitude choices.

5. Drill scenarios: Practice diversion triggers and go/no-go calls under time pressure. Muscle memory matters.

Reading the sky well buys time and options.

How to Display Weather Analysis Skills on Your Resume

3. Jeppesen Charts

Jeppesen charts package airport data, procedures, and airspace into a standardized format for dispatchers and pilots, enabling consistent, safe planning and execution across regions.

Why It's Important

They provide the shared map everyone uses—procedures, minima, terrain notes, hot spots—so planning lines up with what crews will actually fly.

How to Improve Jeppesen Charts Skills

Make them work harder for you.

1. Stay current: Keep chart data synchronized with the latest cycle and NavData changes.

2. Customize views: Use filters, layers, and company notes to highlight alternates, fuel stops, and terrain concerns relevant to your operation.

3. Adopt digital EFB tools: Platforms like Jeppesen FliteDeck and other EFB apps speed up search, cross-referencing, and updates.

4. Train interpretation: Refresh symbology, special procedures, and takeoff/landing minima. Small misreads can snowball.

5. Report discrepancies: Feed any errors or ambiguities back to the provider and your safety team.

Clear charts, clean decisions.

How to Display Jeppesen Charts Skills on Your Resume

4. NOTAM Interpretation

NOTAM Interpretation means quickly decoding Notice to Air Missions (NOTAMs) to find what truly matters—runway closures, nav aid outages, airspace restrictions, GPS interference—then adjusting plans accordingly.

Why It's Important

NOTAMs change the playing field without much warning. Missing one can break legality or create risk where none was expected.

How to Improve NOTAM Interpretation Skills

Signal over noise.

1. Master the language: Know common abbreviations, Q-lines, formats, and the difference between heads-up items and true showstoppers.

2. Practice with live sets: Work recent NOTAM batches and prioritize by impact: critical, operational, informational.

3. Use decoding aids: Internal tools and vetted decoders help check your read when time is tight.

4. Train for traps: GPS jamming, lighting outages, temporary procedures—build playbooks so responses are fast and consistent.

5. Track updates: Stay aligned with current NOTAM policy changes and formatting improvements.

Clarity wins when minutes are short.

How to Display NOTAM Interpretation Skills on Your Resume

5. Air Traffic Control Coordination

ATC coordination for dispatchers means aligning flight plans and operational intentions with the system: filing routes that will clear, handling flow programs and EDCT slots, and coordinating reroutes or altitude changes without chaos.

Why It's Important

Good coordination reduces delays, avoids conflicts, and keeps crews armed with clear expectations. It’s how a plan survives contact with an overworked airspace.

How to Improve Air Traffic Control Coordination Skills

Make the pipeline crisp.

1. Tighten communication: Standardize timelines and formats for updates between the operations center, crews, and ATC facilities. No ambiguity, no repeats.

2. Leverage operational data: Use real-time traffic management programs and surveillance data to anticipate reroutes and metering before they sting.

3. Standardize playbooks: Build quick-response SOPs for common issues—GDPs, AFPs, ground stops, weather deviations—so actions aren’t reinvented mid-storm.

4. Use the right channels: Coordinate via company ATC liaisons, AOC messaging, and established industry paths; keep CPDLC to the pilot-controller link and focus dispatcher comms through ACARS/AOC tools.

Fewer calls. Faster clearances. Smoother days.

How to Display Air Traffic Control Coordination Skills on Your Resume

6. Risk Assessment

Risk assessment is the systematic hunt for hazards in the operation—crew status, weather threats, MEL items, terrain, performance limits—and the deliberate choice of mitigations.

Why It's Important

It turns unknowns into managed risks. That’s safety in practice, not just on paper.

How to Improve Risk Assessment Skills

Sharper, faster, repeatable.

1. Recurrent training: Update on SMS methods, threat and error management, and dispatch-specific risk models.

2. Use decision tools: Apply structured risk matrices and company checklists rather than gut feel alone.

3. Mine the data: Review FOQA/ASAP trends, irregularity reports, and delay codes to spot patterns before they bite.

4. Cross-team communication: Sync with maintenance, crews, and ATC ops for a full picture—no blind spots.

5. Audit compliance: Ensure procedures reflect current regulations and your ops specs; verify, don’t assume.

6. Exercise scenarios: Tabletop disruptions and run after-action reviews to harden responses.

Good risk work feels boring. That’s the point.

How to Display Risk Assessment Skills on Your Resume

7. Crew Scheduling

Crew scheduling covers assigning qualified, rested crew to flights while meeting duty and rest rules, seniority rules, qualifications, and day-of-operation shifts.

Why It's Important

No crew, no flight. The right crew, properly rested and legal, keeps safety intact and cancellations at bay.

How to Improve Crew Scheduling Skills

Fair, compliant, nimble.

1. Adopt optimization tools: Use modern scheduling systems with rule engines to build legal pairings and quick recoveries.

2. Respect preferences: Incorporate bidding and fairness logic to reduce fatigue and improve morale.

3. Keep regulations current: Reflect FAA/EASA duty limits, rest, and qualification currency automatically in the system.

4. Train the team: Ensure dispatch and schedulers fully understand system features and irregular ops workflows.

5. Integrate ops data: Tie scheduling to flight planning and maintenance tools for real-time swaps and alerts.

6. Close the loop: Capture crew feedback and on-time performance data to refine pairing design.

Good schedules feel invisible until the weather turns; then they shine.

How to Display Crew Scheduling Skills on Your Resume

8. Sabre AirCentre

Sabre AirCentre is an airline operations suite that connects dispatch, crew, and day-of-operation control—planning, tracking, and decision support under one roof.

Why It's Important

One source of truth. Plans match execution, and changes propagate quickly to everyone who needs to know.

How to Improve Sabre AirCentre Skills

Work the system so it works for you.

1. Use vendor training: Keep current with modules, new features, and best practices.

2. Automate the routine: Build rules and alerts for common tasks—fuel thresholds, route swaps, EDCT changes—so attention lands where it’s needed.

3. Exploit analytics: Track fuel trends, taxi times, and on-time metrics to fine-tune planning.

4. Improve collaboration: Lean on integrated messaging to sync dispatch, crew scheduling, and stations.

5. Provide feedback: Channel bugs and enhancement requests through your admin and vendor portal.

6. Customize dashboards: Surfacing the right KPIs and alerts beats hunting for needles.

Small configuration tweaks can save hours every week.

How to Display Sabre AirCentre Skills on Your Resume

9. Emergency Procedures

Emergency procedures define who does what, when, and how during critical events—medical diversions, depressurizations, system failures, security threats—so action is calm, coordinated, and quick.

Why It's Important

When seconds matter, confusion costs. Clear procedures save people and preserve the aircraft.

How to Improve Emergency Procedures Skills

Prepare hard, respond clean.

1. Train and rehearse: Run simulations, tabletop drills, and AQP-style scenarios to build reflexes.

2. Keep manuals fresh: Update playbooks with lessons learned, tech changes, and regulatory updates.

3. Strengthen comms: Ensure robust ACARS/AOC channels, call trees, and escalation paths are tested and known.

4. Use live monitoring tools: Real-time flight tracking, weather, and alerting shorten the gap between detection and action.

5. Close out with SMS: Conduct debriefs, capture findings in your Safety Management System, and track corrective actions.

Clarity under stress isn’t luck; it’s practice.

How to Display Emergency Procedures Skills on Your Resume

10. Fuel Management

Fuel management is the art and math of loading enough fuel—trip, contingency, reserve, alternate, extra—while trimming waste through smart routing, altitude choices, and weight control.

Why It's Important

It’s safety and cost wrapped together. Too little is dangerous; too much drags.

How to Improve Fuel Management Skills

Precision first, flexibility second.

1. Refine preflight calculations: Use validated performance data, current NOTAMs, and accurate weights to set the right load.

2. Blend weather into strategy: Aim for wind-optimal altitudes and routes; plan around convection and icing that force deviations.

3. Optimize routing: Compare filed, preferred, and wind-optimal options using approved planning tools.

4. Manage weight: Eliminate nonessential payload and balance loads for performance and efficiency.

5. Support in-flight adjustments: Recommend altitude or route changes when conditions shift; coordinate diversions early if needed.

6. Review post-flight data: Compare planned vs. actual burn to tighten future assumptions.

Every pound counts—on paper and in the air.

How to Display Fuel Management Skills on Your Resume

11. ARINCDirect

ARINCDirect (Collins Aerospace) offers flight support for business aviation—planning, weather, flight following, and communication services to keep operations coherent and responsive.

Why It's Important

It centralizes key support, giving dispatchers fast visibility and reliable tools for day-of-operation changes.

How to Improve ARINCDirect Skills

Turn features into outcomes.

1. Integrate robust weather: Combine radar, satellite, turbulence, icing, and route-impact tools directly in planning flows.

2. Upgrade planning logic: Use advanced routing, fuel, and payload optimization features for leaner plans.

3. Strengthen communications: Align ACARS, satcom, and AOC messaging so updates move without friction.

4. Enhance tracking: Tie surveillance data and alerts to exception-based monitoring for quicker interventions.

5. Adopt predictive analytics: Apply machine learning outputs where available—demand spikes, taxi delays, weather impacts—to preempt issues.

6. Invest in training: Provide structured onboarding and periodic refreshers tailored to your workflows.

The tool is only as good as its setup and the people driving it.

How to Display ARINCDirect Skills on Your Resume

12. Regulatory Compliance

Regulatory compliance means adhering to aviation laws, ops specs, and procedures set by authorities and your company, then documenting proof of that compliance in daily decisions.

Why It's Important

It’s the framework that keeps operations safe and legal. Break the framework and everything else becomes risk.

How to Improve Regulatory Compliance Skills

Make compliance practical, not performative.

1. Stay current: Track updates from authorities such as the FAA and EASA, and reflect changes in your manuals and training.

2. Train continuously: Reinforce ETOPS/EDTO rules, fuel policies, MEL/CDL, RVSM, and crew duty regulations with regular refreshers.

3. Use compliance tools: Employ systems that flag rule conflicts, currency lapses, and documentation gaps in real time.

4. Build checklists: Standardize compliance checks for dispatch release, alternates, performance, and equipment requirements.

5. Communicate broadly: Keep pilots, maintenance, and stations aligned on regulatory constraints and changes.

6. Audit and improve: Conduct internal audits and SMS reviews; correct findings quickly and verify closure.

Compliance isn’t paperwork—it’s how you fly safely every day.

How to Display Regulatory Compliance Skills on Your Resume