Flight Dispatch Function

The Flight Dispatch feature allows operations staff to provide pilots with all necessary operational details before a flight.
When a flight is dispatched, the system automatically creates a Flight Draft with the additional information entered, ensuring pilots have clear, accurate, and standardized pre-flight data.

This article explains how the feature works, what each screen shows, and how the information flows into the pilot-visible flight draft.

Who can dispatch a flight?

The Dispatch button is visible in the Schedule Review page when all three conditions are met:

Schedule status — the record must be in Scheduled or Confirmed status and not yet have a linked flight.
Full schedule access — the user must have write access to schedules:
- Company Administrators and Operations Managers (user group ≤ 140) always have full access.
- Flight Dispatchers, Chief Pilots and Flight Instructors have full access only when the company setting Allow FI schedule management is enabled.
- Pilots and Dispatchers (user groups above 170) can view the schedule but cannot dispatch.
Flight creation permission — the user’s account must be active and allowed to create flights. Users in groups above 150 additionally require an active pilot profile.

User type	Can dispatch?
Company Administrator / Operations Manager	Yes
Flight Instructor / Supervisor (FI management enabled)	Yes
Flight Instructor / Supervisor (FI management disabled)	No
Dispatcher / Pilot	No

If the Dispatch button is not visible for a user who should have access, check that Allow FI schedule management is enabled under Company Settings and that the user’s account is active.

From the Schedule view, locate the flight you want to dispatch.
Click the SCHEDULED button to open the actions dropdown.

In the dropdown, select Dispatch Flight.
This opens the Create Flight Draft window.

2. Creating the Flight Draft

The Create Flight Draft pop-up allows you to specify operational details needed by pilots.
These fields may include:

Departure and Arrival airports
Callsign
Flight type (e.g., Commercial, Dual, etc.)
Passenger count
Cargo weight
Route
Remarks (e.g., special cargo, restrictions, operational notes)

Once all required fields are completed, click Create Draft.
The system will generate a flight draft visible to the pilots assigned to the flight.

3. How the Flight Draft Appears to Pilots

Once created, the draft becomes available in the pilot interface.
All information entered during dispatch is automatically inserted into the draft, ensuring the flight crew receives clear and complete data.

The pilot view includes:

Flight type
Distance and number of landings
Cross-country status
Passengers & cargo
Route
A dedicated Remarks section containing any operational notes added during dispatch

This ensures pilots can review all important details immediately, without needing additional communication from operations.

Crew medical limitations

When anyone on the crew (PIC, SIC or supervisor) has limitations on a medical that is valid on the day of the flight, the dispatch box lists them first, with their meaning. For example, VDL means “valid only with correction for defective distant vision” and OPL means “valid only without passengers”. See Medical limitations.

The PIC's medical is valid only without passengers, and the flight carries two.

Flylogs also warns, in red, when the flight as entered goes against a limitation:

Code	Warning when
OPL — valid only without passengers	PAX or the passenger list is above 0
ORL — safety pilot if passengers are carried	passengers are carried and there is no second pilot on board
OCL — valid only as a qualified co-pilot	the pilot is the PIC
OML — valid only as, or with, a qualified co-pilot	the pilot is the PIC and the flight has no SIC
OSL — valid only with a safety pilot	there is no second pilot on board

“On board” means the PIC and the SIC. A supervisor (for example, of a student solo) is not counted as on board.

Limitations never block dispatch. They make sure the person dispatching knows about them; the decision stays with them. RXO and SIC (follow-up examinations) are not shown here. Only limitations stored in Flylogs are shown, so keep the crew’s medicals up to date.

Who sees this box: the same people who can dispatch the flight, which means its own crew (PIC, SIC, supervisor) and staff who can dispatch any flight (user group 150 and below).

Type rating

When the aircraft requires a type rating, the dispatch box checks the crew on the day of the flight. If the PIC (or the SIC on a multi-pilot aircraft) has no valid type rating for the aircraft’s model, and no TRI or TRE on board covers them, the flight cannot be dispatched. The Company Administrator, Operations Manager and Compliance & Safety Manager can enter an override reason to dispatch anyway; it is recorded for that crew and aircraft.

Pre-dispatch gates: checklist & FRAT

Two optional safety gates can be required before a flight is dispatched. Both are off by default. The checklist is enabled per company under Company Settings → Flights → Pre-dispatch gates; the FRAT is enabled per flight type (Flight types → edit → Pre-dispatch). The feature is available on Club, Premium and Unlimited plans.

Pre-dispatch checklist — a short acknowledgement checklist (weather, NOTAMs, aircraft status, crew documents, SOPs) that must be fully ticked before the Dispatch button is enabled. The checklist is an acknowledgement only and is not stored.
Flight Risk Assessment (FRAT) — on flight types that require it, a crew member dispatching their own flight must complete a FAA-style PAVE risk questionnaire; high-risk flights require a Supervisor. See the dedicated Flight Risk Assessment (FRAT) article for the full details.

NOTAMs ranked for your flight

The booking’s briefing and the flight page list the NOTAMs for the departure and arrival aerodromes. When you are online, Flylogs reads each one against the planned flight (aircraft, flight type, aerodromes and times) and orders the list so the ones that matter come first:

Affects flight — e.g. a runway or aerodrome closure, an obstacle on the approach, no touch-and-goes during your slot.
Check — worth a look before departure.
NOTAMs it is very sure are irrelevant (an office-hours change, say) are folded behind Show N likely not relevant — never removed.

Departure and arrival NOTAMs in the booking briefing, most relevant first.

This is an automated reading to help you brief, not a replacement for it: read every NOTAM before flight.

Alternate aerodromes

An alternate aerodrome is optional. Enter it in the Alternate field when you dispatch, or on the flight form itself, so a draft flight that was never booked can have one too. Two aerodromes fit in the field, separated by a space or a slash (for example LEVS LEGT).

Once an alternate is set, the booking briefing and the flight page show its weather (METAR and TAF) and NOTAMs next to the departure and arrival, and the Wx & NOTAMS PDF export on the flight page includes it. Alternate NOTAMs are shown in full and are not ranked, so read all of them.

Remarks

If a schedule record is published and dispatched and the PIC is changed, the record will automatically be switched back to SCHEDULED and the associated flight will be unlinked.
If a PIC or SIC tries to dispatch the flight, the system will check for required pilot certificates, and if the user lacks any of the required certificates (medical, license, rating), Flylogs will reject the flight dispatch function.
If a PIC skips the Dispatch button entirely and logs the flight directly, Flylogs doesn’t leave the schedule stranded: when that flight is confirmed, the system looks for the schedule it belongs to (same PIC, aircraft, and a time window overlapping the flight by up to 30 minutes) and links it automatically. See Automatic schedule matching on confirm for the full details.

Summary

The Flight Dispatch function streamlines communication between operations and flight crew by:

Allowing dispatchers to add all relevant pre-flight information
Automatically populating the pilot’s flight draft
Reducing manual updates and potential communication delays
Ensuring a standardized workflow for all flights

By using this feature for every dispatched flight, your team improves accuracy, operational clarity, and overall efficiency.