![]() ![]() … Fatigue during international flights is due mainly to flight duration and time zone differences, while fatigue on domestic flights is related to total working hours, landing frequency (number of legs), workload and layover duration.” “The effects of jet lag and shift work are often characterized by symptoms such as disrupted sleep, changes in mood state, loss of appetite, gastrointestinal disturbance and disorientation. “Sleep loss and circadian rhythms interact dynamically to regulate changes in alertness and performance,” the report said. “Cumulative sleep loss results in sleep debt, with chronic sleep deprivation, night after night, leading to cumulative and progressive performance decrements, even in healthy adults.”Īnother main factor for flight attendants is circadian rhythm disruption, and a third is length of duty time. This factor has been “shown in numerous studies to produce waking neurobehavioral deficits, which include vigilance degradations, increased lapses of attention, cognitive slowing, short-term memory failures, slowed physical and mental reaction time, rapid and involuntary sleep onsets, decreased cognitive performance, increased subjective sleepiness, and polysomnographic evidence of increased sleep pressure,” the report said. 2 Based on limited information gathered in the time available, that report had listed sleep loss among the main factors in flight attendant fatigue. The outcomes related to sleep and circadian disruption, performance decrements and safety issues can be understood in the context of the human operators’ physiological design and generalized across people, settings and demands.” Status of FAA ResearchĬurrent research on flight attendant duty time, rest periods and fatigue by the FAA Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI) comprises six follow-up projects that closely track recommendations that CAMI issued in July 2007. … Regardless of the actual participants or measures in specific studies, the findings can be generalized and applied to the human operators in aviation, whether pilots, flight attendants, air traffic controllers or mechanics. “ activities have created an extensive scientific foundation to understand fatigue in aviation operations, including policies and practices that can reduce fatigue and enhance sleep, performance and alertness. ![]() “The design and outcomes of any effort should include a clear path from study findings to an evaluation of whether further regulatory action is needed or warranted,” ATA said. 1ĪTA says that survey had been inadequately described in the FAA’s request for public comment on funding, and “the information obtained will not have practical utility, and the survey will not add to the FAA’s efforts to define, enact and support policies and practices that effectively manage fatigue in aviation operations.” Self-reported, subjective data cannot address questions of minimum crew rest regulations, reduced rest and potential regulatory revisions, the association said. ![]() For example, the Air Transport Association of America’s (ATA’s) position is unchanged from when it argued against a national flight attendant duty/rest/fatigue survey, which nonetheless has proceeded as ordered by a congressional appropriations committee in September 2004. airlines remain unconvinced that any research involving subjective judgments of fatigue by flight attendants should serve as the basis of regulatory changes or airline policy changes. Cabin crew labor unions and other advocates of increased attention to the issue meanwhile hope that the evolving components of airline safety management systems (SMSs), such as aviation safety action programs (ASAPs) and fatigue risk management systems (FRMSs), will change the perceptions and the realities. Then, mere opinions about the prevalence of fatigue serious enough to jeopardize flight attendant performance of safety-critical duties may carry less weight.Īirline and regulator interest in cabin safety-related studies by fatigue scientists and other specialists has been reflected in presentations at aviation safety conferences in anticipation of the results of the latest scientific inquiry by the U.S. airlines, labor unions and regulators to come to terms with why individual cabin crewmembers sometimes work on flights suffering from what they consider severely degraded alertness. Objective data analyses to be available next year may offer the best chance yet for U.S. ![]() By Wayne Rosenkrans AeroSafety World, June 2009 New FAA research probes flight attendants’ anxiety over insufficient sleep and unsafe performance. ![]()
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