Examining the causes and effects of flight attendant fatigue

The scope of civil aviation operations has increased rapidly in recent years. This growth has also raised the expectations from flight attendants. The duties of cabin crews have diversified and created several challenges including longer duty days, consecutive working days, heavy workload. Hence, flight attendants have become subject to physical and mental fatigue due to irregular sleep, inadequate rest time, and long working hours. This study investigates the causes and effects of fatigue among flight attendants of a Turkish airline company through a self-administrated questionnaire. A structured survey was developed and run online to 152 flight attendants. It collected data on demographics, sleep quality, fatigue experience, causes and effects of fatigue, and fatigue management strategies. The results show that almost all participants experience sleep-related issues. The findings indicate that the majority of the flight attendants have trouble falling asleep before flight duty. The sleep duration before night flights and during layovers with minimum rest time is dramatically low. Moreover, a significant number of flight attendants have admitted having nodded-off unwillingly during flight. The results also reveal that factors related to scheduling - i.e., layovers with minimum rest time, long duty days, night flights, consecutive working days and 4-legged flight duty play an important role in causing fatigue. Hence, scheduling should be improved. In balancing work and social life, men struggle more than women and married flight attendants have more difficulty than single ones. Also, the sleep duration before night flights is strikingly low in younger cabin crews than their older colleagues. The immune system of the majority of the flight attendants is negatively affected due to working conditions. These findings provide valuable insights for airline companies and policymakers to seriously manage fatigue related factors to ensure the security and safety of airline operations and the well-being of flight attendants.