New Cabin Crew Members’ Stress and Fatigue Management
Rajaveräjä, Sanni (2019)
Rajaveräjä, Sanni
2019
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019120525022
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-2019120525022
Tiivistelmä
This thesis aims to develop better understanding of the two occupational health risks flight attendants face in their work, stress and fatigue. As known, the work of Cabin Crew can be highly stressful with constantly variating work hours, unbalanced day rhythm and quickly changing situations that require the crew to adapt fast. These conditions make the occupation challenging while the performance of the crew is critical to both safety and security of the passengers.
The focus of this study is on how flight attendants in the early stage of their career experience the stress and fatigue and what ways do they find efficient in order to maintain life balance. The purpose is to help new cabin crew members to adapt to their new career faster and easier. Furthermore the airline industry can utilize this research’s results when composing their training entities.
The study has been implemented as a qualitative research in autumn 2019 by interviewing five cabin crew members in the beginning of their career. Semi-structured theme interviews were used as a method for data collection. Later the data was analysed with the help of transcription of the recorded interviews. As the number of interviewees was limited, no statistical generalizations can be made from the data.
The results show that new flight attendants have adapted their career quite well despite of the lifestyle changes it has brought. The flight attendants had suffered barely any stress and no fatigue. However, issues with sleeping arose from the results and increased need for rest was reported. Finding the most suitable sleeping pattern for oneself on layovers and reserving enough time for rest during free days could be beneficial. Yet, the cabin crew members showed to obtain knowledge about stress and fatigue and they were using multiple management strategies to mitigate the risks. This is a positive sign towards a successful training, but it also appeared in the results that the training program was experienced stressful. Trainees’ performance might suffer from too high stress levels, consequently this finding could be researched further.
The focus of this study is on how flight attendants in the early stage of their career experience the stress and fatigue and what ways do they find efficient in order to maintain life balance. The purpose is to help new cabin crew members to adapt to their new career faster and easier. Furthermore the airline industry can utilize this research’s results when composing their training entities.
The study has been implemented as a qualitative research in autumn 2019 by interviewing five cabin crew members in the beginning of their career. Semi-structured theme interviews were used as a method for data collection. Later the data was analysed with the help of transcription of the recorded interviews. As the number of interviewees was limited, no statistical generalizations can be made from the data.
The results show that new flight attendants have adapted their career quite well despite of the lifestyle changes it has brought. The flight attendants had suffered barely any stress and no fatigue. However, issues with sleeping arose from the results and increased need for rest was reported. Finding the most suitable sleeping pattern for oneself on layovers and reserving enough time for rest during free days could be beneficial. Yet, the cabin crew members showed to obtain knowledge about stress and fatigue and they were using multiple management strategies to mitigate the risks. This is a positive sign towards a successful training, but it also appeared in the results that the training program was experienced stressful. Trainees’ performance might suffer from too high stress levels, consequently this finding could be researched further.