Air carrier first officer describes his inability to contact his dispatcher via ACARS and relates a ...

Narrative:

We where assigned holding while inbound to lga on the korry arrival. Nfp sent a ACARS message from the enroute delay page stating 'holding' with all the pertinent information and requesting a bingo number and alt weather. After approx ten minutes no response; I sent a second message this time using the misc report message function. No responses came from dispatch. Since; our workload increased as we changed from one hold to another and ATC changed the efc time the captain had a bingo fuel number planned which we agreed upon so we continued inbound to lga. If the hold would have continued ten minutes more a radio call was the next option. Upon landing at lga the captain called dispatch to query and they advised that they missed the messages and no alerts came through. This is the second time in two weeks that I've personally ACARS'ed in-flight messages to dispatch and received no response. The past week was a gate related station not answering the radio message. The dispatcher in that case said; 'I didn't see your messages it went to a different dispatcher...this thing is messed up'....

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Air Carrier First Officer describes his inability to contact his Dispatcher via ACARS and relates a previous similar occurrence. The Dispatcher advises that he never received the messages.

Narrative: We where assigned holding while inbound to LGA on the KORRY arrival. NFP sent a ACARS message from the enroute delay page stating 'holding' with all the pertinent information and requesting a bingo number and alt weather. After approx ten minutes no response; I sent a second message this time using the misc report message function. No responses came from Dispatch. Since; our workload increased as we changed from one hold to another and ATC changed the EFC time the Captain had a bingo fuel number planned which we agreed upon so we continued inbound to LGA. If the hold would have continued ten minutes more a radio call was the next option. Upon landing at LGA the Captain called Dispatch to query and they advised that they missed the messages and no alerts came through. This is the second time in two weeks that I've personally ACARS'ed in-flight messages to Dispatch and received no response. The past week was a gate related station not answering the radio message. The Dispatcher in that case said; 'I didn't see your messages it went to a different Dispatcher...this thing is messed up'....

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site as of July 2013 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	988752
Time
Date	201201
Local Time Of Day	1201-1800
Place
Locale Reference	ZNY.ARTCC
State Reference	NY
Environment
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	EMB ERJ 145 ER/LR
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Cruise
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	First Officer Pilot Not Flying
Experience	Flight Crew Last 90 Days 120 Flight Crew Total 6200 Flight Crew Type 4600
Events
Anomaly	Deviation - Procedural Published Material / Policy Deviation - Procedural FAR

Air carrier first officer describes his inability to contact his dispatcher via ACARS and relates a previous similar occurrence. The dispatcher advises that he never received the messages.