A lot of passengers travel daily without realizing the important role the airline dispatcher makes in daily decisions everyday. From the cockpit point of view, we consider them to be an additional crew member. This shows the importance how pilots view the role of a dispatcher. The airline dispatcher sits in an office environment usually at the company's headquarters. However, it's the role of the dispatchers that is important. The Captain & dispatcher of a specific flight share joint responsibility for that flight. The captain has 50% authority & the dispatcher has 49%. The captain always have the final rule. The dispatcher calculates all the math performance for the flight. The dispatcher then tells the captain how much fuel to put on the aircraft, what route to fly, what to expect at the arrival airport, what to expect en route, severe turbulence in the area, passenger loads, weather, & any equipment that's not operational. The dispatcher serves to provide additional safety for the crew. I remember a flight last summer when there were severe thunderstorms along our route. Our dispatcher called us up in flight & told us he was changing our flight route before air traffic controllers were even aware . Our dispatcher could see hundreds of miles ahead of what we couldn't see & planned a route that literally took us around every thunderstorm in that area. We never had to deviate once & the path to the airport was clear as if God himself cut a path for us. That's how good a job that this particular dispatcher did for us that day. The passengers had a smooth flight thanks to teamwork with the dispatchers. That's what happen everyday behind the scenes of an airline.