A dispatcher told a flight crew prior to arrival that if they requested departure deicing a delay or...

Narrative:

Half way through our flight to clt; I received an ACARS message from my dispatcher: 'hey fellas; clt is almost out of deice fluid. Guys are getting out of clt without having to deice; but if you request to get sprayed; we might have serious delays if not have to cancel...' I responded with: 'well its -2 and low ovc chances r good that we will need to deice; its really not up to me if we deice or not. If there is ice on the plane; we deice.' dispatch wrote back: 'understand that. If you don't need it; don't request it.' I responded with: 'why would I request it; if I didn't need it...' dispatch wrote back: 'agree. Just telling you what I was told' the last comment from dispatch is; what concerns me the most. If my dispatcher was being honest; and just telling me what he was told to tell me; that is cause for major concern. [Any] duty manager or soc manager that tells their dispatchers to send these kinds of messages to pilots is really out of touch with our procedures. This is an extreme example of our soc trying to manipulate or pressure the crew into an unsafe situation; in the interest of an on-time departure or not having to take a cancellation. How would that duty manager feel if the crew got sucked into this kind of unsafe operation; and the outcome was not a favorable one?

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: A Dispatcher told a flight crew prior to arrival that if they requested departure deicing a delay or cancellation would result because of low deice fluid availability at CLT.

Narrative: Half way through our flight to CLT; I received an ACARS message from my Dispatcher: 'Hey fellas; CLT is almost out of deice fluid. Guys are getting out of CLT without having to deice; but if you request to get sprayed; we might have serious delays if not have to cancel...' I responded with: 'Well its -2 and low OVC chances r good that we will need to deice; its really not up to me if we deice or not. if there is ice on the plane; we deice.' Dispatch wrote back: 'Understand that. If you don't need it; don't request it.' I responded with: 'Why would I request it; if I didn't need it...' Dispatch wrote back: 'Agree. Just telling you what I was told' The last comment from Dispatch is; what concerns me the most. If my Dispatcher was being honest; and just telling me what he was told to tell me; that is cause for major concern. [Any] Duty Manager or SOC Manager that tells their dispatchers to send these kinds of messages to pilots is really out of touch with our procedures. This is an extreme example of our SOC trying to manipulate or pressure the crew into an unsafe situation; in the interest of an on-time departure or not having to take a cancellation. How would that duty manager feel if the crew got sucked into this kind of unsafe operation; and the outcome was not a favorable one?

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of April 2012 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.

Attributes
ACN	927681
Time
Date	201101
Environment
Light	Daylight
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Medium Large Transport Low Wing 2 Turbojet Eng
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Captain Pilot Not Flying
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Experience	Flight Crew Total 4500 Flight Crew Type 2500
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural FAR Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy

A dispatcher told a flight crew prior to arrival that if they requested departure deicing a delay or cancellation would result because of low deice fluid availability at clt.