Being a member of the flight crew and cabin crew has always been considered to be one of the most privileged careers. These personnel have a good salary and a good employment opportunity. However, a career in aviation can also come with unexpected challenges such as that of a tight work schedule and a busy lifestyle that can result in fatigue. The challenge can come about from having several tasks, performing unexpected activities, undertaking long flights, and going through frequent medical examination so as to remain continually qualified. All these factors can be combined and result in fatigue among the aircrew personnel. Fatigue among flight crew personnel can be caused by poor scheduling, huge workload, and sleep disruptions and can be prevented through training, time management, and adequate regulations.
Definition of Terms
Fatigue
Fatigue can be defined as being in a psychological state where one has a reduced mental and physical performance. Fatigue among the cabin crew members can impact their ability and alertness and their ability to operate the aircraft safely. The different types of fatigue can include mental fatigue and physical fatigue. Mental fatigue could include several factors such as being sleepy which usually results in a decrease in one’s attention and the ability to perform complex activities effectively. Physical fatigue is usually associated with an overall tiredness of the body and specific to a particular type of muscle group.
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Air Crew
The air crew can be defined as all the members of the aircraft that attend to passengers. It can include the cabin crew, flight crew, and also the technical crew. Cabin crew involves a qualified crew member and would include the flight crew who are designed to perform activities and duties related to the flight and safety of passengers during the operation of the aircraft. The aircrew is thus responsible for the well-being of the passengers in the aircraft.
Causes of Fatigue
Crew scheduling and disruptions
Airline pilots can experience crew rescheduling, flight directions, job assignment, and aircraft environment that cause physical fatigue, rest defects, and mental decline. The work of the aircrew can be impacted by several factors such as the weather which can result in changes in their work schedule and lead to disruptions. Pilot fatigue has thus been found to be affected by several critical factors such as the crew scheduling, aircraft environment, and crew scheduling (Lee and Kim, 2018). Most of these factors are usually unanticipated and often result in mental fatigue, physical fatigue, and rest defects.
Sleep loss and disruptions
Poor sleep quality can be a highly risky factor for fatigue. The sleep quality of aircraft personnel has been studied by investigating the different ways that sleep quality is associated with the risks of fatigue among aircrew personnel. The study of 116 German-speaking pilots showed that there is a strong correlation between sleep quality and fatigue (Sieberichs & Kluge, 2016). The loss of sleep among the aircrew personnel can be caused by disruptions in their schedule which could result in a reduction in breaks during their duty periods. Insufficient sleep usually accumulates over a period of time and results in fatigue.
Workload
Pilots that have recorded huge workloads have also shown an increase in their fatigue. The flight crew personnel can be subject to huge levels of work demand such as complaints from passengers and service expectations by their company. Bennett (2019) observed that pilots recorded maximum and average workload that ranged from 5 to 7. The pilots recorded that they were completely exhausted and extremely tired as a result of their huge work schedules. The workload can also be caused by the pilots operating with a minimum crew as some of the crewmembers could report that they were sick. Additionally, the delivery of service to passengers under a specific pressure of time can result in the perceived workload being huge leading to fatigue.
Extended Workdays
Flight crew can have consecutive workdays and this increases the risks of fatigue. The changes in the work schedule of the flight crew members can also result in extended workdays for the flight crew personnel. The extended workdays could be caused by some of the members reporting sick and having a low workforce leading to fatigue. The risk of fatigue through extended workdays by Goffeng et al. (2019) who established that 4 consecutive days of flight can result in fatigue. This called for a proper management of the work days of the flight crew personnel.
Poor Lifestyle habits
Poor lifestyle habits such as poor eating, drinking, smoking, and fitness can result in a poor physical condition leading to fatigue. The cabin crew personnel are thus expected to engage in healthy activities such as proper nutrition and exercising in order to realize optimal performance. The poor lifestyle habits can also be caused by the work environment challenges. The cabin crew personnel may sometime eat on board and take food that may cause sleepiness and fatigue. The inadequacy of healthy food options can thus be a risk factor for fatigue. The cabin crew may also be exposed to tight work schedules that make it difficult to find to engage in healthy activities such as exercising.
Poor training on fatigue management
Flight crew members that have been poorly trained on fatigue management are likely to expose themselves to situations that are likely to result in fatigue. In case participants have been exposed to an inadequate fatigue management training, they may not be able to apply the training to effectively management different areas such as their work schedules. Without proper training on fatigue, members of the flight crew are also less likely to know when they show episodes or symptoms that have been caused by fatigue.
Prevention of Fatigue
Time management
Fatigue can be prevented by having a sleep management routine of maximizing or minimizing their sleep. While the schedules of the aircrew personnel can be difficult, an effective time management can be used to realize optimal working conditions. The time management could focus on activities such as flight preparation strategies that are related to the uncertainty of the time allocation of flights. The activities that the pilots could engage in could include maximizing of their sleep in case they expected later breaks in the flight and minimizing their sleep in case they expected breaks earlier on or at unfavorable times (Zaslona et al., 2018). By making sure that their time management focuses on sleep patterns, pilots can ensure that they can continue to work at optimal levels even with disruptions in their flight schedules.
Fatigue management training
Fatigue management training can be effective in preventing fatigue among flight crew members. Fatigue management training would be critical in helping the flight crew personnel to understand what goes through in their line of work that affects their alertness when working. The training can help other employees to effectively recognize the signs of fatigue among other cabin crew members and thus provide the correct advice on how to address the issue appropriately. This is in line with the observations of van den Berg et al., 2019 who stated that
“ On the other hand, fatigue management training can improve employees’ understanding and perception of rostering, the challenges associated with working irregular hours, and ameliorate any misconceptions about fatigue. It is therefore recommended that fatigue management training for cabin crew is evidence-based, requires assessment, and is given priority.”
The fatigue management strategy for every airline should thus have fatigue management at its center. The training should be undertaken continuously to enable employees to learn the different strategies that can be used to reduced their fatigue and manage such situations effectively.
Regulations
Adequate regulations should be put in place to prevent the possibilities of fatigue among flight crew members. The regulations can focus on ensuring the safety of passengers. Hulínská et al. (2016) identify that there are regulations of fatigue that consider the safety of the aircrew personnel. The regulations that focus on the management and monitoring of fatigue-related safety risks should be based on scientific principles, knowledge, and operational experience. All these regulations are made to ensure that personnel usually perform at optimum level of alertness.
Fatigue Risk Management System
Fatigue risk management systems can be established to monitor and maintain fatigue-related risks. The fatigue risk management system (FRMS) would involve several processes that include measuring and assessing the current conditions, modeling and analyzing the risks of fatigue, managing and mitigating the fatigue risks and final assessment and feedback of the mitigations implemented (Hulínská et al., 2016). The process can be implemented in any airline facility to ensure that fatigue is well monitored and any fatigue-related risks are considered.
Conclusion
It was identified that there can be fatigue among aircrew personnel which can be casused by poor scheduling, huge workload, and sleep disruptions. It was identified that such fatigue can be prevented through training, time management, and adequate regulations. The risk factors for fatigue were identified to have been caused by a poor schedule and disruptions in the work schedule. This could lead to sleep disruptions and thus result in experiences of fatigue. A poor lifestyle habit such as poor diet and poor exercising could also result in fatigue. Proper time management and management of one’s sleep schedules could be implemented to enable a proper balance of one’s schedule and sleep patterns and thus reduce the possibility of fatigue. Additionally, one could focus on having fatigue management training and regulations for fatigue management through a fatigue management system.
References
Bennett, S. A. (2019). Pilot workload and fatigue on four intra-European routes: a 12-month mixed-methods evaluation. Journal of Risk Research , 22 (8), 983-1003.
Goffeng, E. M., Wagstaff, A., Nordby, K. C., Meland, A., Goffeng, L. O., Skare, Ø., ... & Lie, J. A. S. (2019). Risk of Fatigue Among Airline Crew During 4 Consecutive Days of Flight Duty. Aerospace medicine and human performance , 90 (5), 466-474.
Hulínská, Š., Němec, V., & Szabo, S. (2016). Regulation for aviation safety. Interdisciplinarity in Theory and Practice , 38-41.
Lee, S., & Kim, J. K. (2018). Factors contributing to the risk of airline pilot fatigue. Journal of air transport management , 67 , 197-207.
Sieberichs, S., & Kluge, A. (2016). Good sleep quality and ways to control fatigue risks in aviation—An empirical study with commercial airline pilots. In Advances in Physical Ergonomics and Human Factors (pp. 191-201). Springer, Cham.
van den Berg, M. J., Signal, T. L., & Gander, P. H. (2019). Fatigue risk management for cabin crew: the importance of company support and sufficient rest for work-life balance—a qualitative study. Industrial health , 2018-0233.
Zaslona, J. L., O’Keeffe, K. M., Signal, T. L., & Gander, P. H. (2018). Shared responsibility for managing fatigue: Hearing the pilots. PloS one , 13 (5).
