Swing shift dispatcher reports being required by his company to take over as many as 40 flights each night and finds the work load unmanageable.

Narrative

My swing shift coworkers and I are expected to take over an enormous amount of flights every evening. I am a Relief Dispatcher and have worked this shift many times since November when the workforce on swing shift was cut in half. Of those times; at least 1 of the 3 dispatchers (sometimes 2 dispatchers) have had to dump part of their workload onto the Assistant Dispatcher and/or Chief; as they felt the flight load was unmanageable and unsafe. Today it was all 3. This has been discouraged by our Manager; which has made it a very conflicted and uncomfortable environment for some of my coworkers. Today I was expected to take over 41 airborne flights ranging geographically from the East Coast -- EWR; MIA; DCA; ORD; to Mexico; the West Coast PHX; SAN; Midwest ORD; MSP; etc. -- basically all of North America. Taking over 41 flights that were already airborne was unacceptable to me. Our flight following program is not even designed to handle that many flights; so you have to scroll down 2 pages to see all of the active flights. Today I gave half of those airborne flights to the Assistant Dispatcher and added the other half of those airborne flights to my workload. The Assistant also took over another full desk; and the Chief took over some flights from the third swing shift Dispatcher. Recommendations: Open another swing shift desk immediately. This safety issue has been voiced by many if not all of the dispatchers who work this shift. It is a safety hazard that has not been corrected by the company for the last 2 months.