Investigation on cumulative psychophysiological effects of short-haul flight crew members - Part I: Methods

Background: A multitude of scientific investigations concerning stress and workload of flight crews has been carried out over the past. Until now only single schedules have been examined medically for different reasons. Possible effects developing over a longer period of time have not been considered so far. Methods: The study was conducted with a German airline company. 29 short-haul pilots (33,64 ± 7,93 yr) were investigated continuously within a period of eight weeks each. A small hand held PC at pilot’s disposal allowed fast and efficient filling in questionnaires, handling the flight log and the daily sleep log. Completing the flight log, all relevant flight, fatigue and workload data of every duty day were documented. Sleep/wake cycles were documented by both objectively, by wrist activity and subjectively, by daily filling in questionnaires of the sleep log before and after bedtime. Besides of the sleep log, pilots also answered standardized questionnaires with respect to the subjective evaluation of fatigue, strain and recovery. The participants’ objective performance was measured by a Psychomotor Vigilance Task (PVT) after getting up in the morning and before going to bed in the evening. Results: The aim of this research was to identify work-related environmental factors that may affect sleep-wake behaviour, fatigue, workload, and stress of short-haul cockpit crew members during consecutive schedules within a period of eight weeks each (results see Niederl et al. part II). Conclusions: From the results recommendations might emerge how scheduling and rostering of cockpit crews on short haul operations could be improved (discussion see Niederl et al. part II)