Flight News On Strategies That Airlines Need To Consider To Motivate Passengers Attention To Safety Briefings

Airlines need to consider new strategies to motivate passengers as they do not pay

as much attention to cabin safety briefings as they should, according to a recently published report by the Australian Transport Safety Bureau. The report offers 13 suggested actions for engaging passengers attention, as well as a model of factors influencing passenger responses, or lack of them, to safety announcements.

The report concludes that the overall effectiveness of cabin safety communication is "generally weak" is based on a study that comprised a literature review, industry consultation, interviews of passengers following flights and passenger focus groups. The level of attention to safety communication is "similar.to that of other countries, although the study results are based on data from Australia, a level that has been regarded almost universally by cabin safety experts as too low to maintain good passenger safety", says the report.

"Perceived relevance" of safety information is one key to passenger attitudes, the study says. Although it seems axiomatic that passengers would be interested in facts that might help keep them alive in an accident, negative assumptions-such as skepticism about the like hood of surviving-could stand in the way. As one respondent said, "If there is going to be a problem, I Think all hell is going to break loose, so {safety information} is not going to make any difference.

Other factors influencing passenger's attention to safety communications included:

. Overconfidence."Results showed that passenger ability to recognize messages presented during safety communication are high," the report says."This is endorsed by high levels of passenger agreement with having seen all the content in the briefing before'and knowing all the information I need".

.Social norms in the aircraft cabin. The report says, "Passengers associated those who pay attetntion to safety communications with undesirable stereotypes, such as the nervous or inexperienced, and identified peer group behaviors that tend not to favor paying attention.The impact of such norms appears to be greatest on infrequent and younger travelers".

.Repetition."Most respondents believed they had heard all the content in the briefing before," the report says, "Ten percent provided unprompted feedback that they considered the briefing too boring, and 29 percent agreed, when prompted, that the briefing was boring. Feedback from focus groups supported this notion to an even greater extend."

. Confusion between recognition and recall. Passengers tended to believe that recognizing a standard safety message meant they understood or could remember it."However, the results also suggested that ability to recall safety information and perform safety actions when required may be lower than passengers expect," says the report.

Planned Behavior Model

The study showed that "passengers recognize the importance of cabin safety and are aware of behaviors expected of them; however, the perceptions and actual behaviors do not reflect this recognition." The report offers a framework for understanding the dissonance between perceived and actual behaviors.

Icek Azjen, currently head of the Division of Personality & Social Psychology, University of Massachusetts at Amherst (U.S), formulated the theory of planned behavior (TPB). The theory "has been a significant and influential social-psychological model used in the determination of consumer decision making and attitudes toward behaviors for some time," the report says.

According to the TPB model, human behavior is driven by intentional and motivational factors that influence "how hard an individual is willing to try or how much effort they are planning to exert in order to plan the behavior." The individuals existing knowledge, the starting point or context, is influenced by three independent variables, described by the report as follows:

."Attitudes towards the behavior- the degree, to which a person has a favorable or unfavorable.appraisal of the behavior in question, including behavioral outcomes;

.Subjective norms-the perceived social pressure to perform or not to perform the behavior, including motivation to comply with others expectations; and,

."Perceived behavioral control-the perceived ease or difficulty of performing the behavior, reflecting past experience, as well as anticipated impediments and obstacles."

The TPB is shown schematically in Figure 1.

The report considers how each component of the TPB plays out in cabin safety communication.

Attitudes towards the Behavior

The report says that attitudes that could contribute to in attention to cabin safety communication include the perception that needing to apply the information is improbable; the discomfort that safety information produces in some or, conversely, the reassurance it offers others; the perception that the passenger recognizes the message and considers his or her safety knowledge to be good; and the perception that safety information may not be effective in an emergency.

Subjective Norms

The report says, "In establishing what subjective norms could contribute to low levels of attention to cabin safety communications, this study has identified that some passengers consider paying attention socially undesirable; consider peer group compliance to pay attention is low; observe a lack of flight attendant enthusiasm;[and] do not perceive an inter-dependence on other passengers should an emergency arise."

Perceived Behavioral Control

Perceived behavioral control measures, in effect, how much pressure a person experiences to perform a task. The more pressure, the lower the perceived behavioral (self-) control. A high level of perceived behavioral control means the person feels in control.

Generally, perceived behavioral control among passengers is high because nothing particularly demanding is required to pay attention, the report says.

"To a limited extend, perceived behavioral control may influence passengers through the distractions of other tasks, "the report says."This may arise by the perceived priority of other tasks relative to the priority given to in-flight safety(communicating with other passengers, sorting personal ,possessions,etc).Perceptions of the availability of time to perform these tasks during this stage of flight may also be a contributing factor".

The 13 suggested actions (Table1) are in some cases designed to counteract factors described in terms of the TPB.

Because the perceived behavioral control in connection with cabin safety communication is typically high, it can be inferred that attitudes towards the behavior and subjective norms offer the best opportunities to improve passengers' attitudes and behavior.

For example, the "I've heard it all a hundred times before" attitude of many frequent flyers might be countered by Action no.1:"Airlines should develop tailored cabin safety communication strategies for frequent flyers that account for the unique challenges of effectively delivering safety messages to such passengers." Action no.6,"Content variation," might also be helpful in reaching this audience.

The perception that flight attendants are unconvincingly delivering the safety briefing by rote is addressed by Action no.7 ,"Flight attendant briefings," designed to encourage better flight attendant performance through training and aobservation.Distraction factors can be minimized, Action no .8 suggests ,by airlines refraining from providing newspapers and magazines, amenities and nonessential information-"regardless of class of travel" until after the safety communication or even until after takeoff.

Suggested Actions for Improving Passenger Attention to Cabin Safety Briefings

Title Action No. Suggested Action

Frequent Flyers 1 Airlines should develop tailored cabin safety communication

Strategies for frequent flyers that account for the unique challenges

Of effectively delivering safety messages to such passengers.

Passenger information 2 Additional factual safety information and resources about air travel

And cabin safety should be made available to passengers at airports

by airlines and safety authorities.

Escape slides 3 Additional detailed information and/or emphasis regarding the

Operation and use of escape slides should be provided to passengers

during safety briefings.

Brace position explanation 4 Carriers should be encouraged to detail the brace position during

Safety briefings.Where a video-based briefing with visuals of the

Required brace position is not provided, carriers should be required

To provide a detailed verbal explanation to brace positions in the

Safety briefings/demonstration.

Brace position understanding 5 further investigations should be made into methods of improving

Passenger understanding of the brace position, particularly where

The safety card is the primary means of information delivery.

Content variation 6 Carriers should vary the content or creative format of safety briefing

On a regular basis, notwithstanding regulatory requirements, to

Increase passenger attention. Such variation should not result in

Dilution of, or cause confusion in regard to, core safety messages.

Flight attendant briefings 7 Carriers should monitor and enhance the ongoing performance

Of cabin crew relation to delivery of the safety briefing. This may

Be achieved within existing crew management processes through

Training and observation.

Passenger distraction 8 Carriers should refrain from providing passengers with reading

Materials (such as newspapers and magazines), amenities and

Nonessential information, regardless of class of travel, until the

Conclusion of the safety briefing and, where possible, after

takeoff.

Safety cards 9 The safety regulator, the civil aviation safety authority, should implement

Guidelines and approval processes for testing of the effectiveness

and comprehension of airline passenger safety cards.

Interaction effects 10 Beyond the extend of current requirements, passengers should be provided

With an explicit direction that additional information exists in the safety

Card that is not contained in the briefing and that the card should be read.

Safety disposition 11 Carriers should seek to understand the unique safety disposition of their

Passengers (versus that of other airlines) and tailor their safety

Communication strategies to suit.

Safety media development 12 Airlines should utilize the resources of professionals experienced

In consumer psychology and /or communication disciplines when

designing future safety communications and associated media.

Theory of planned behavior 13 Additional research should be initiated to investigate and validate

the dimensions of the theory of planned behavior model presented

in this study.

Safety Management Systems.

Safety management systems (SMS) have tremendous potential not only as tools for risk reduction within individual operations but also for establishing uniform aviation safety standards around the world.Nevertheless,SMS development has been slow, and some international aviation safety specialists say that many operators are unsure exactly how to proceed.

An SMS typically is characterized as a structure of systems to identify, describe, communicate, control, eliminate and track risks. More formally, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) defines an SMS as "an organized approach to managing safety, including the necessary organizational structures, accountabilities, policies and procedures".

In the second edition of its Safety Management Manual (SMM) from 2009, ICAO says that the SMS concept represents a shift away from a reactive safety model. In the reactive mode, advances in safety stem from accident investigations and resulting recommendations. With SMS, the aviation community will shift towards the proactive mode. In this mode the ongoing collection of data enables continual analysis of operations to identify risks and determine the best methods of addressing them before the risks result in an accident or serious incident.

ICAO said that airlines and aircraft maintenance organizations around the world should have had an SMS in place by Jan,1 ,2009-a deadline that proved to be impossible for may to meet.

Full-scale implementation of SMS around the world was foreseen to be "going to take more time," said Capt Daniel E. Maurino, co-ordinator of the ICAO Flight Safety and Human Factors Program me in 2008.

Bill Edmunds, senior human performance specialist for the Air Line Pilots Association, International (ALPA) agreed."It's an evolving process."Edmunds said."It's pretty intensive in time, effort and money.and it's going to be years before it's in place everywhere.

Flight News On Strategies That Airlines Need To Consider To Motivate Passengers Attention To Safety Briefings

By: Anthony A Juma

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