Effect of stress factors on decision making: A research on pilots

Uncertainty and crisis create stressful environment. Among these environments airline pilots have to cope with this stress and manage their workload. Therefore, it is crucial to understand and study the effect of stress factor on decision-making process of airline pilots in order to prevent undesired and unsafe events during flight operations. In this context, the aim of this study is to explain the impact of stress on decision making processes used among airline pilots. The study was conducted with the data collected on 206 Turkish airline pilots working at a private airline company in Turkey. Data were collected by the survey method and collected data were used in quantitative analysis. The data collected throughout the research were analyzed with the support of SPSS 20 and SMART PLS 4 programs. As a result of the study, it was observed that the impact of stress is effective on pilots' decision-making process. Within the scope of the study, it is observed that the methods of coping with the stress also have relationship with decision making styles of airline pilots and the established hypotheses were supported. Although not among the scope of this research, demographic data obtained from the pilots were also analyzed in order to contribute to the literature. Moreover, a meaningful relationship could not be observed. Keywords: Decision-making, Pilots, Aviation, Stress, Uncertainty.