Legal Interpretations
Snow 2008
Summary
The Question
Under 14 CFR 121.422(b), must a dispatcher who wrote a new air carrier's dispatcher competency check still take it, and who must give it?
Background
A requester asked how a dispatcher hired by a new air carrier to write its dispatcher training program and competency check could be required to take that check, suggesting the author would have an unfair advantage.
The FAA’s Interpretation
Yes, but someone else must give it. 14 CFR 121.422(b) requires a competence check "given by" an appropriate supervisor or ground instructor, which the FAA reads to mean a different person must administer and grade the check, even for its author. That supervisor or instructor can change some variables to make the check more challenging.
- Requester
- Snow
- Issued
- January 8, 2008
- Subject
- Air Carrier & Commercial Operations
Regulations Cited
Page 1
0U.S. Department
of Transportation
Fede,.I Aviation
Adminiatratlon
Mr. Douglas K. Snow
Dear Mr. Snow:
OflX;e of the Chief Couneel 800 Independence Ave., S .W.
Waahinglon, 0 .C . 20591
JAN 8 Lm8
This is in response to your letter, dated October 18, 2007, in which you raise questions about a new air carrier's supervisory dispatchers. If the new air carrier hires a dispatcher to write the carrier's training program for dispatchers and to develop the dispatcher competency check, you ask how can the person who has been hired to write the competency check be required to take the test. You suggest that allowing that person to take the test that he has written would give him an unfair advantage.
In order to comply with Section 121.422(b), another supervisory dispatcher or dispatcher ground instructor must administer the test and grade the test for the person who will serve as a dispatcher. This is true even for the dispatcher who happened to have written the dispatcher training program and developed the competency check. Section 121.422(b), provides, in part, that initial ground training for the aircraft dispatcher must include a competence check "given by" an appropriate supervisor or ground instructor. We viev. the phrase "given by" to mean that a different person must administer and grade the test for anyone who wishes to serve as a dispatcher for the carrier, regardless of who wrote the carrier's training program and developed the test. The other supervisor or ground instructor can change some variables in the test in order to make it more challenging for the person who originaJJy developed the test.
This response has been coordinated with the Air Carrier Training Branch of the Air Transportation Division of Flight Standards Service.
z: ,_}1~Rebecca B. M1her.;on"
Assistant Chief Counsel for Regulations, AGC-200
Regulations Referenced
Snapshot retrieved August 6, 2026.