An attempt to keep Jazz planes in the air this fall begins today the Chorus Aviation subsidiary sits down with its dispatchers.

The Canadian Airline Dispatchers Association, Local 2, represents 67 Halifax-based airplane dispatchers who have voted 92 per cent in favour of walking off the job on Sept. 17.

Union chair Allan Shiell said he’s hopeful a deal can be reached.

“We both seem predetermined to try to come to some kind of a deal to avoid a labour disruption, because if there was a labour disruption it would be pretty severe,” Shiell told News 95.7.

Jazz operates between 800 and 900 flights daily and without the airline’s dispatchers those flights would be grounded.

Shiell said he knows the company is working on contingency plan, but he said any such plan would have to include a modified flying schedule.

Dispatchers are are licensed and regulated by Transport Canada. They calculate fuel loads and ensure legal compliance, working directly with pilots, maintenance technicians and others to ensure the aircraft are safe to fly. An aircraft cannot legally leave the gate without its flight plan and equipment being cleared by the dispatcher.

“It’s really not something where you can hire someone off the street and have them working in three months,” he said. “It would probably take six to eight months to train somebody into your company’s situation.”