Following in the wake of the Flight Attendant
Strategic Bargaining Summit this past January,
leaders from the Association of Flight
Attendants-CWA (AFA-CWA), Transport Workers Union (TWU),
International Association of Machinists (IAM), the
Association of Professional Flight Attendants (APFA),
and our newest coalition partner the United Steel
Workers of America (USW) representing flight
attendants at Colgan and Pinnacle Airlines, met in
Washington DC on Tuesday, March 18 for a scheduled
meeting of the Coalition of Flight Attendant.
A full day of discussions took place with attendees
participating in briefings on Legislative, Air
Safety, and EAP activities, negotiations status
updates at various carriers, and reports from the
Strategic Action Taskforce.
Coalition participants met with CAMI (FAA Civil
Aerospace Medical Institute) representatives
regarding the FAA Flight Attendant Fatigue Study
mandated by Congress in the FY-08 Omnibus Spending
Bill.
In 2005, NASA Ames Research Center’s Fatigue
Countermeasures Group conducted a study on Flight
Attendant fatigue with CAMI oversight and
assistance.
Their general findings indicated that Flight
Attendants appear to be at risk of experiencing
fatigue associated with length of duty, sleep loss,
circadian rhythm disruption, workload, and
nutrition. Incident/accident reports suggest an
association between fatigue and performance.
Based upon these findings the Study made the
following recommendations:
1. Survey of Field
Operations- to assess the frequency, with which
fatigue is experienced, the situations in which
it appears, and the consequences that follow. 2. Field Research on the Effects of
Fatigue-To explore physiological effects of
fatigue, sleepiness, circadian factors, and rest
schedules on flight attendants. 3. Validation of Models for Assessing FA
Fatigue- Ensure that model predictions are
consistent with data gathered from flight
attendants during field operations. 4. Focused Study of Incident
Reports-Expand incident databases to better
understand details of the events. 5. International Carrier Policies and
Practices Review-To learn how other countries
address these issues and with what results. 6. Training-FA’s could benefit from
information on fatigue, its causes and
consequences, it interaction with circadian
disruption, and how and when to employ
countermeasures.
The FY-08 Omnibus Spending Bill
provided the funding and required the FAA and CAMI
to conduct an analysis of the six areas listed
above, including a survey of field operations.
Once the Field Operations Survey is reviewed and
finalized, it will be distributed to approximately
30,000 flight attendants across the country and will
include representative populations of network,
regional, and low-cost air carrier flight
attendants. The Survey will be open for twelve weeks
beginning in October 2008 (anticipated date).
If you are contacted and asked to participate in
this important fatigue survey, we urge you to do so.
AFA-CWA Legislative Affairs and Air Safety
Departments along with Committee members and our
coalition partners lobbied congress to provide the
funding in order to further the examine and
evaluation study of flight attendant fatigue by the
FAA. As flight attendants we know full well how
fatigue issues affect our performance. This survey
and study will further assist AFA and the
Coalition’s legislative objective to protect the
health and safety of our members.
