Less-than-optimal fatigue and alertness levels prevail among U.S. flight attendants even before they report for duty, says a new report. The independent research team behind a field study of 202 cabin crewmembers at 28 airlines collected, for the first time, objective data that corroborate subjective perceptions of “ubiquitous fatigue across the U.S.-based flight attendant community,” reported in 2009 by a separate national survey.1
“On average, seemingly few, if any, flight attendants begin their workday at their well-rested best,” the latest report concludes. Few differences were found among study participants from network, low-cost and regional airlines, or between domestic and international operations when the study was conducted in May–November 2009 and February–June 2010 for the Civil Aerospace Medical Institute (CAMI) of the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Left for future research, however, was the que…
