As customer-facing staff, cabin crew require strong interpersonal skills, but their primary responsibility is safety, and their training must reflect that, as Bernie Baldwin reports.
Airline cabin crew are front-line personnel and, as such, are brand ambassadors for their employer. What is often forgotten though, is that their primary role is to ensure the safety of passengers. Thus the training process for candidates must blend safety with that of the customer service and ambassadorial elements of the job.
Before that, however, airlines have to attract young people into the career. And with airlines currently having many aircraft on order, it seems likely that there will be a strong demand in the near future for new flight attendants.
Ivan Noel is president at Inflight Innovations and the Inflight Institute, and he has been observing the numbers challenge the industry is facing. “In the past, there was a high demand to join the cabin crew role. Over the past decade, there has been a shift, not necessarily in the desire to become crew, but in the crew’s longevity. We have noticed that, within a few years, cabin crew members are leaving the profession. This strains airlines, which continuously need to recruit and train new cabin crew,” he explains.
“At Inflight Innovations and the Inflight Institute, we are dedicated to alleviating the burden by providing one of the world’s most extensive pre-qualification training programmes. Think of it like a pilots’ private ground school, whereby a candidate proves their ability and competency before taking a spot in the airline’s ground school. This, in turn, reduces the failure rate and increases efficiency, which saves the airlines incredible amounts of money,” Noel emphasises.
Once the attraction of the profession brings in candidates, the right training programmes have to be delivered. New course features, whether in terms of structure, IT or equipment, are introduced on a regular basis to improve the quality of training. As might be expected at a company called Inflight Innovations, the team there are big advocates of new and better processes and procedures.
“Over the past year, we have launched several initiatives to improve safety and efficiency,” Noel confirms. “Competency-Based Training and Assessments (CBTA) have been a staple for pilot training in Europe for some time. We have developed a unique tool to improve training and competency for both pilots and cabin crew. Our platform tracks and trains a variety of areas and provides hard data to identify deficiencies and improve safety for both pilots and cabin crew and create a more effective training footprint.”
“Fit For Flight is a new programme that we launched recently, which focuses on the human element of crew. The programme covers areas such as nutrition, fatigue, health and wellness, and crew members’ mental health. This programme has already received international accreditation,” he adds.
“In conjunction with Empower Communications Group from Boston, MA, we have launched an Advanced De-Escalation programme that focuses on a crew member’s ability to reduce the threats in the cabin. With these techniques, a crew member can identify and manage a host of issues and help to prevent them from escalating. This methodology can help to prevent the need for diversions of the aircraft and help to keep all involved safer,” Noel declares.
Lufthansa Aviation Training (LAT) too, has predominantly been investing into the implementation of CBTA throughout all its cabin training courses, according to senior director aviation training development, Gilad Scherpf. “This trainee-centric approach aims to identify, train and retain the core competencies linked to specific training needs,” he notes.
“Supported by ICAO and EASA, the CBTA approach also includes thorough instructor standardisation and data collection. Training, as well as trainee-related data, will be matched with flight safety data and used for continuously improving the training courses as well as providing support for the trainee’s learning journey,” Scherpf adds.
“At the same time, technologies such as extended reality (XR) and new apps, which can be found on our website, are further utilised to increase training efficiency as well as effectiveness. Static scenarios, with a limited number of active trainees in cabin training devices as well as fixed-schedule recurrent trainings (say, once a year), will therefore be supplemented by engaging, personalised digital training content. This training support is being made available for the trainees without time or other limitations,” he reports.
One innovation likely to have an impact on cabin crew training is artificial intelligence (AI). Its introduction could change the training process in many ways.
“At the present, LAT is evaluating AI as part of several research and development projects,” says Scherpf. “In a recent collaboration with Apple and 3spin Learning, we were able to successfully introduce AI-based avatars in an augmented reality training scenario, including natural language.”
The application, another to be used for de-escalation training, allows the simulation of varying, situational passenger behaviour using AI while considering the reactions of the crews. The training utilises features of Apple’s Vision Pro to depict realistic situations in an overlay of a virtual cabin environment and the real world in the training centre.
“By integrating AI algorithms, the learning content is highly individualised and tailored to the needs of the trainees and thus enables effective and efficient training,” Scherpf remarks. “Trainees receive real-time feedback from instructors, who also get the ability to adjust situations and passenger behaviour. The ultimate goal is to promote individually the required competencies of the crews. No two trainings are alike.
“Further use cases include the evaluation of AI-based instructors (chat/voice) and improved accessibility with regard to complex data sources such as operations manuals. AI is already used for the generation of training content, such as videos,” Scherpf confirms.
Ivan Noel certainly envisages AI having a major effect on cabin crew training. “AI will definitely become a game changer. It is hard to predict the outcome as of yet,” he muses. “As the tool becomes more refined, I believe we will see it used in the development of learning criteria and on board the aircraft. Areas of efficiency will be identified, and new procedures will be put in place to improve the travel experience for both crew and passengers.”
That experience, of course, incorporates safety too — the primary outcome needed from high quality training.
Author: Bernie Baldwin
Published: 13th August 2024
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