Flight Attendant Fatigue

Abstract

The Departments of Transportation and Treasury and Independent Agencies Appropriations Bill (House Rpt. 108-671) included a directive to the Federal Aviation Administration to conduct a study of flight attendant fatigue. The NASA Ames Research Center Fatigue Countermeasures Group (FCG) was contracted by CAMI to conduct the study. To meet the goals of the study, this report contains a literature review on fatigue as potentially experienced by flight attendants, an evaluation of currently used (actual vs. scheduled) flight attendant duty schedules, and a comparison of these schedules to the current CFRs. The report additionally reviews fatiguerelated incident/accident information from the Aviation Safety Reporting System (ASRS) and the NTSB database. One report section describes the application of three different performance and fatigue models to assess how flight attendant duty schedules contribute to increased levels of fatigue and predicted changes in performance. The report concludes with 6 recommendations concerning issues that require further evaluation, including: (1) Survey of Field Operations. To assess the frequency with which fatigue is experienced, the situations in which it appears, and the consequences that follow; (2) Focused Study of Incident Reports. Flight attendant fatigue study: The Committee is concerned about evidence that FAA minimum crew rest regulations may not allow adequate rest time for flight attendants. Especially since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the nation's flight attendants have been asked to assume a greater role in protecting the safety of air travelers during flight. Current flight attendant duty and rest rules state that flight attendants should have a minimum of nine hours off duty that may be reduced to eight hours, if the following rest period is ten hours. Although these rules have been in place for several years, they do not reflect the increased security responsibilities since 2001, and only recently have carriers begun scheduling attendants for less than nine hours off. There is evidence that what was once occasional use of the 'reduced rest' flexibility is now becoming common practice at some carriers. Because FAA regulations allow the rest period to commence shortly after the aircraft parks at the gate, the eight hour 'rest' period also includes the time it takes a flight attendant to get out of the terminal, go through customs if necessary, obtain transportation to a hotel and check in. Due to this situation, it is likely that many flight attendants are performing their duties with no more than four to six hours of sleep. To better understand the impact of the minimum rest requirements of CFR §121.467 and CFR §135.273, the Committee recommended a study of flight attendant fatigue. This study is to consider professional input from FAA's Civil Aeromedical Institute. The study should be finalized and submitted to the House and Senate Committees on Appropriations no later than June 1, 2005, including the agency's recommendations on potential regu...

Fatigue risk management for cabin crew: the importance of company support and sufficient rest for work-life balance—a qualitative study

“…The view that fatigue is inherent and inevitable due to the nature of their work is consistent with previous research 2,5,6,36) , as is the view that fatigue affects cabin crew health and wellbeing as well as safety (cabin, passenger and personal) and cabin service 3) .…”

“…Given these potentially serious consequences, careful consideration should be given to all sources of cabin crew fatigue to enable more effective fatigue management. While the physiological causes of fatigue are sleep loss and circadian disruption 2) , participants also identified a range of additional contributing factors at work and outside of work, including: insufficient rest, high workload, the work environment, a lack of company support and Industrial Health 2020, 58, 2-14 insufficient fatigue management training. Most of these factors have been identified previously 1,3,5,6,9,42,43) .…”

“…The aviation industry offers 24/7 service, which creates a number of challenges for cabin crew. They often experience irregular schedules, long duty periods, circadian rhythm disruption, sleep loss and high workload, which have all been shown to be contributing factors to cabin crew fatigue [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9] .…”

“…This may have implications for the rest requirements for cabin crew. However, current scheduling does not take into account the relationship between workload and the high levels of fatigue frequently experienced by cabin crew 2) .…”

Safety Versus Passenger Service: The Flight Attendants’ Dilemma

“…At the time the larger study was begun (Spring 2001), no detailed descriptions of flight attendant duties were available in the open literature (but see Hagihara, Tarumi, & Nobutomo, 2001, for an overview of some aspects of their duties; and Nesthus & Schroeder, 2007, for a task analysis and discussion of flight attendants’ major duties). Requests for task analyses and job descriptions from the air carrier's training department were unproductive.…”