Narrative:

This flight was planned on a route that went through ZZZZ. In my pre-flight planning process; I checked the enroute notams by loading all the enroute fir boundaries and then using 'control-F' and searching the enroute notams for applicable airways. Today; there were no such hits when performing this NOTAM checking method. Unfortunately; there was a NOTAM for ZZZZ that had been issued just before I arrived for work:...due to covid-19...ats will not be available. Ats contingency plan(aic A11/18) for ZZZZ1 fir act. The flight had been airborne for some time; but was still in ZZZZ2 airspace when the crew advised me that they were being re-routed out of ZZZZ airspace - the re-route was minimal and after considerable effort (due to non-existent or out-of-date info in air for ZZZZ and ZZZZ3) I was finally able to speak with ZZZZ3 ATC and obtain an expected route through their airspace; and then I was able to advise the crew of the routing. The amount of en-route fir boundary notams is daunting - impossible to read these for every international flight --- therefore using the 'control-F' to search for applicable airways allows the dispatcher to quickly determine if there are any en-route implications to the flight. Of course; if there are no associated airways with a NOTAM as in the case of the situation affecting this flight; then pertinent closures can be missed. In addition; since the crews do not receive a copy of the fir boundary notams; this scenario leaves the dispatcher as the single point of failure.be smarter when it comes to fir boundary notams. Utilize a resource like 'smartnotam' to weed through all the fir boundary notams and then provide both the crew and the dispatcher a condensed list of applicable fir boundary notams to read and decipher.

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Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Dispatcher reported the flight was re-routed because ATC was closed due to COVID-19.

Narrative: This flight was planned on a route that went through ZZZZ. In my pre-flight planning process; I checked the enroute NOTAMs by loading all the enroute FIR boundaries and then using 'control-F' and searching the enroute NOTAMs for applicable airways. Today; there were no such hits when performing this NOTAM checking method. Unfortunately; there was a NOTAM for ZZZZ that had been issued just before I arrived for work:...DUE TO COVID-19...ATS WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE. ATS CONTINGENCY PLAN(AIC A11/18) FOR ZZZZ1 FIR ACT. The flight had been airborne for some time; but was still in ZZZZ2 airspace when the crew advised me that they were being re-routed out of ZZZZ airspace - the re-route was minimal and after considerable effort (due to non-existent or out-of-date info in AIR for ZZZZ and ZZZZ3) I was finally able to speak with ZZZZ3 ATC and obtain an expected route through their airspace; and then I was able to advise the crew of the routing. The amount of en-route FIR boundary NOTAMs is daunting - impossible to read these for every international flight --- therefore using the 'Control-F' to search for applicable airways allows the Dispatcher to quickly determine if there are any en-route implications to the flight. Of course; if there are no associated airways with a NOTAM as in the case of the situation affecting this flight; then pertinent closures can be missed. In addition; since the crews do not receive a copy of the FIR boundary NOTAMs; this scenario leaves the Dispatcher as the single point of failure.Be smarter when it comes to FIR boundary NOTAMs. Utilize a resource like 'SmartNotam' to weed through all the FIR boundary NOTAMs and then provide both the crew and the dispatcher a condensed list of applicable FIR boundary NOTAMs to read and decipher.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.