Team-Based Human Factors Challenges

 

Human factors of aviation in my opinion relates to the mental and physical aspects of human nature. Certain conditions of human factors from the Pilots handbook of aeronautical knowledge (PHAK) I believe are important to note are complacency and stress (2018). According to the PHAK stress can be a benefit to preventing complacency, but if not coped with appropriately stress can build to become an intolerable burden (FAA, 2018).

A team challenge that often faces the problems of human factors is flight operations. Behind any successful flight involving the transportation of people or goods is a hard-working operations department. For example, with my company for an international flight to be a success normally four days of work are required before a flight even takes place. If operations aren’t able to complete their jobs, then the results can be costly resulting in delays, cancellations, or a loss of trust and access to certain airfields.

                                                                            Photo credit: Universal weather

 This involves communication between multiple different agencies, regulations must be consulted for every request. With good communication flight operations allows for the mission to be accomplished with less headaches and more success. Human factors like complacency can affect all aspects of the aviation field and flight operations is no exemption. Complacency is evident when the attitude of “this is how we have always done it” appears. It is crucial that critical thinking be applied to every mission and not just take the easy route. An example of this thought process and overcoming it is evident when my company replaced the last group of individuals assigned here. One saved route for a certain flight always resulted in delays, cancellations, and unnecessary holding while ATC sorted out what needed to be changed. At first our company had assumed this is how it has always been done, but after investigation and inter-agency communication we found the host nation no longer recognized some of the points on this stored route. Overcoming the complacency of accepting that this route always results in delays and investigating how to make it better has resulted in much better mission completion.

 

 References

Administration, F. A. (2017). Pilot’s Handbook of Aeronautical Knowledge (Federal Aviation Administration): FAA-H-8083-25B. Skyhorse.

Flight operations. (n.d.). [Photo]. https://www.universalweather.com/solutions/flight-operations-manager/