To remain current, what must a dispatcher do?

• A. Pass their company's recurrency check and observe 5 hours in the flight deck (jump seating).
• B. Attend an annual safety conference.
• C. Complete 60 flight hours.
• D. Review weather briefings only.

Answer: (A)

Staying current as a dispatcher means keeping up with the latest procedures and regulatory expectations so you can safely perform dispatch duties. The requirement here is to pass your company's recurrency check and to spend five hours observing in the flight deck through jump seating. The recurrency check refreshes your knowledge on critical topics like flight planning, MELs, fuel calculations, airway routing, and coordination with flight crews and operations centers. The five hours of cockpit observation helps you stay familiar with current cockpit workflows, crew communication, and real-time decision-making, ensuring you understand how dispatch decisions play out in actual flight operations.

Attending an annual safety conference, while valuable for overall safety awareness, is not what keeps a dispatcher current. Simply completing 60 flight hours isn’t relevant for dispatcher currency, since currency is about training refresh and cockpit exposure rather than flight time. Reviewing weather briefings alone doesn’t provide the ongoing, practical refresh of procedures and cockpit context that the recurrency check and flight deck observation deliver.