Introduction: Flight crew members who fly multiple sectors per duty are at risk of experiencing
high levels of fatigue, which can compromise safety. Although it is known that subjective
workload and fatigue are closely related, the relationship between these two constructs
is not well understood. This study aims to investigate the relationship between subjective
workload and fatigue during flight duties, taking into account the number of sectors
flown. The influence of duty duration, previous workload, and demographic factors
is determined as well.
Methods: Data used for this study was derived from the FTL2.0 study, a large-scale study executed
by a consortium of research institutes, with the objective of determining the effectiveness
of the current European Flight Time Limitations. In the overall study, a total of
226 participants (both cockpit and cabin crew) were studied for 2–4 weeks, and were
asked to fill out questionnaires on dedicated smartphones during both on and off duty
days. Of these, 102 flight crew members who flew multiple sectors were included in
the present analysis. Questionnaires used were the Karolinska Sleepiness Scale (KSS),
the Samn-Perelli Fatigue Scale (SP), the Rating Scale Mental Effort (RSME) and the
NASA Task Load Index (TLX). In addition, a 3-minute Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT)
was performed before and after each flight duty. Demographic factors such as age,
experience, and rank were collected at baseline, together with information on health,
lifestyle and previous workload. Information about the number of sectors and flight
duty duration was provided by both the participants as well as the airlines involved.
Multiple linear regression analysis will be used to examine the relationship between
subjective workload, number of sectors flown, and the outcome measures subjective
fatigue and PVT performance. It will also be determined if one of the two independent
variables acts as a moderator (affects the causal relation between two other variables).
In addition, since participants could indicate what was the main reason for their
perceived high workload (e.g., turnaround time, ATC, weather, unruly passengers, difficult
airport, technical issues), descriptive statistics will be applied to these reasons
as well.
Results: The analyses are being conducted at the moment. Results will be presented during
the WTS symposium in Brazil.
Conclusion: This study aims to disentangle the effect of perceived workload, the number of sectors
flown, and fatigue of flight crew. The outcomes have implications for the development
of effective fatigue risk management systems in airlines who fly multi-sector operations.
