By Aeruxo — Licensed Flight Dispatcher | 15+ Years in Airline Operations A friend once texted me mid-flight: “There’s a loud thunk under the plane. Are we going to die?” I texted back after she landed: “That was the landing gear. You were never in danger. You were hearing the airplane doing exactly what it … Read more
By Aeruxo — Licensed Flight Dispatcher | 15+ Years in Airline Operations Flight cancellation decisions are one of the most complex parts of airline operations. They involve safety, legal constraints, and operational trade-offs that are not visible to passengers. A flight cancellation is not a decision made lightly. It is not made by an algorithm … Read more
By Aeruxo — Licensed Flight Dispatcher | 15+ Years in Airline Operations Here is something most passengers do not know: every single commercial flight I have ever planned—every one of the tens of thousands I have dispatched in 15 years—was planned with the assumption that an engine might fail. Not because engine failure on an … Read more
By Aeruxo — Licensed Flight Dispatcher | 15+ Years in Airline Operations Flying in snow is one of the most operationally complex challenges in aviation… It was a December morning, and New Chitose Airport in Sapporo was disappearing. Not gradually—rapidly. The METAR I pulled at 08:00 local showed 3,000 meters visibility with light snow. By … Read more
By Aeruxo — Licensed Flight Dispatcher | 15+ Years in Airline Operations September 2025. Super Typhoon Ragasa—Category 5, sustained winds of 230 km/h, the most powerful storm the world saw that year. It tore through the Philippines, slammed into Taiwan, shut down Hong Kong International Airport for nearly 36 hours, and forced the cancellation of … Read more
By Aeruxo — Licensed Flight Dispatcher | 15+ Years in Airline Operations You have been descending for twenty minutes. You felt the landing gear drop—that reassuring thunk. Through the window, you can see the runway. Houses, cars, the airport fence. You are almost there. You tighten your seatbelt. Ten more seconds and you will be … Read more
By Aeruxo — Licensed Flight Dispatcher | 15+ Years in Airline Operations A few months ago, a friend called me the night before her flight to Tokyo. She had seen a news report about a plane crash somewhere in the world, and she was terrified. “Be honest with me,” she said. “Is flying safe? Like, … Read more
By Aeruxo — Licensed Flight Dispatcher | 15+ Years in Airline Operations The ACARS message came in at 22:47 local time: “REQUEST DIVERSION CLK. PAX MEDICAL EMERGENCY. ADVISE.” I was three hours into a night shift. The flight was an Incheon-to-Manila service, about 90 minutes from landing. A passenger had collapsed in the aisle—suspected cardiac … Read more
By Aeruxo — Licensed Flight Dispatcher | 15+ Years in Airline Operations You are sitting at the gate. Your boarding time was 10 minutes ago. The screen flickers. “DELAYED — New departure time: to be confirmed.” No explanation. No one at the counter seems to know anything. The passenger next to you mutters, “Typical.” I … Read more
By Aeruxo — Licensed Flight Dispatcher | 15+ Years in Airline Operations I still remember the first time I sat down at an OCC workstation and realized: this is where every flight is planned and monitored. Not at the boarding gate, not in the cockpit—but right here, in a windowless room full of glowing screens, … Read more