The effects of work-life balance on work motivation of civil aviation sector employees during the COVID-19 outbreak in Türkiye

Today, many individuals work for extended periods, leaving little time for their personal lives. This can have adverse effects on happiness, productivity, and jobsatisfaction across all sectors. In the aviation industry, these effects can lead to irreversible negative consequences. Therefore, it is crucial for aviation employees to maintain a healthy work-life balance and high levels of work motivation. The lack of attention given to these important topics in Turkish aviation literature is the primary motivation for this study. The topic of work-life balance is a popular subject in literature. Articles and theses typically explore work-life balance in relation to employee productivity, work addiction, organizational commitment, burnout, and gender inequality. The number of studies examining the unity of the aviation and tourism sectors is limited. Additionally, no research has been found on the impact of work-life balance on work motivation during the COVID-19 epidemic, which is the focus of this thesis. Therefore, this study aims to contribute to the literature on civil aviation and tourism. The research employed a quantitative method and collected data through aquestionnaire. The sample of the study consists of 458 cockpit and cabin crew working in airline companies operating in Türkiye. To examine the difference in scores obtained from participant measurements based on demographic characteristics, we used independent sample t-tests for groups of 2 and one-way ANOVA tests for groups of more than 2. The research revealed a strong positive correlation between the participants' work- life balance and work motivation. The results of the T-test and ANOVA indicated that the work-life balance and work motivation of aviation employees varied depending on their demographic characteristics. Keywords: COVID-19, Work motivation, Aviation, Work-life balance, Tourism