The Employee Experience of Cabin Crew During Covid-19
Lukkarila, Jessica (2021)
2021
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Julkaisun pysyvä osoite on
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202105178970
https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:amk-202105178970
Tiivistelmä
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating effect on aviation. Thousands of aircraft have been grounded, leaving flight crew without work. Cabin crew all over the world have suffered the consequences, with some having had their working conditions and contracts changed, while others have been laid off for different periods of time, and many have even lost their jobs.
The objective for this thesis was to discover how these measures taken by airlines to survive the crisis have been experienced by cabin crew, and what could’ve been done differently.The author also wanted to discover whether the airlines’ actions to cut costs had had an effect on the sense of safety on-board, and how these aviation professionals envisioned the future of the industry.
The theoretical framework consists of the concept of employee experience, as well as some aspects of aviation that were relevant to the objective of the thesis. Employee experience was studied and defined using some of the most popular theories and models. Airline safety, issues specific to the cabin crew profession, and the current situation in aviation were introduced to give the reader a better picture of the industry in question.
In order to answer the research questions a quantitative survey was conducted online between the last week of March and the first week of April 2021. The survey was distributed in several cabin crew groups on social media, and the data collected was analyzed using statistical visualization.
The results of the study show that the experiences of cabin crew during the pandemic are very divided. The conclusion the author came to was that the cabin crew who were already unsatisfied with their airline before the pandemic hit have had a very negative experience, and the crew that have experienced the crisis in a more positive way had a good employee experience to start with.
The current uncertainty has not affected the cabin crew’s sense of safety on-board enough to cause concern, but the situation will need to be monitored in the future. Most cabin crew in ‘the eye of the storm’ see aviation faced with a slow and difficult recovery in the future, with worse working conditions, but some also see the sun behind the clouds and believe that once the pandemic will be over the industry will ‘boom’. To avoid a negative experience in a similar situation the crew say that airlines should communicate with their employees honestly and transparently and listen to them in an effort to solve problems. Cabin crew want to feel valued and cared for by their employer.
The objective for this thesis was to discover how these measures taken by airlines to survive the crisis have been experienced by cabin crew, and what could’ve been done differently.The author also wanted to discover whether the airlines’ actions to cut costs had had an effect on the sense of safety on-board, and how these aviation professionals envisioned the future of the industry.
The theoretical framework consists of the concept of employee experience, as well as some aspects of aviation that were relevant to the objective of the thesis. Employee experience was studied and defined using some of the most popular theories and models. Airline safety, issues specific to the cabin crew profession, and the current situation in aviation were introduced to give the reader a better picture of the industry in question.
In order to answer the research questions a quantitative survey was conducted online between the last week of March and the first week of April 2021. The survey was distributed in several cabin crew groups on social media, and the data collected was analyzed using statistical visualization.
The results of the study show that the experiences of cabin crew during the pandemic are very divided. The conclusion the author came to was that the cabin crew who were already unsatisfied with their airline before the pandemic hit have had a very negative experience, and the crew that have experienced the crisis in a more positive way had a good employee experience to start with.
The current uncertainty has not affected the cabin crew’s sense of safety on-board enough to cause concern, but the situation will need to be monitored in the future. Most cabin crew in ‘the eye of the storm’ see aviation faced with a slow and difficult recovery in the future, with worse working conditions, but some also see the sun behind the clouds and believe that once the pandemic will be over the industry will ‘boom’. To avoid a negative experience in a similar situation the crew say that airlines should communicate with their employees honestly and transparently and listen to them in an effort to solve problems. Cabin crew want to feel valued and cared for by their employer.