No time has highlighted the complex and shifting links between passenger confidence, passenger perception of safety within the cabin environment, and flight operations like the year-plus of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s been especially true in recent weeks and months, as mask-wearing and inflight behaviour has been added into wider socio-political tribalism currently infecting numerous countries.
We sat down with Melbourne-based psychologist Les Posen of Flightwise, who specialises in fear of flying and aviation psychology, as Australia continues its early economic recovery from COVID-19, a recovery that seems likely to be a pathfinder for other countries.
COVID has shown a new angle to questions of passenger safety
Despite all the efforts made by airlines and safety professionals worldwide, it’s human nature that “the question ‘do airlines take safety seriously’,” Posen says, “is never far away in passengers’ minds.”
“The airlines have got a tough job to try and match to try and bring together the equation of safety, comfort and price,” he notes, “and somehow figure out a coefficient in there, where they can maximise safety, while at the same time charging as little as possible to make to maximise profits.”
Passengers are indeed concerned. Under one airline’s social media post about their work to keep the cabin as safe as possible, comments included:
“You can be as clean as you want but boarding like you did flight 2153 today will spread the virus. So unnecessary to pack the jetways when boarding.”
“Don’t care how clean your plane is, as long as you’re packing the plane don’t count on me flying on it. Even your study with the defense dept doesn’t show any removing their mask to eat or drink, never mind talking to someone. [Airline name] must think we’re stupid, profits over safety.”
“I trust you but not my fellow passengers. As long as mask deniers play games on airplanes, I’ll stay on the ground.”
(https://twitter.com/united/status/1353379574470430720)
High profile passenger safety issues have been affecting flight operations in recent years
Even after well-publicised safety-related events like the Dr David Dao incident and a rise in disruptive incidents onboard, “we’re in new territory in the sense that these are not the usual safety things that airlines traditionally had to deal with,” Posen says, noting that airlines “had a safety culture protocol very much about around engineering and not really around people. These changes mean they’ve got to bring a new understanding to the passenger population.”
There are of course, existing regulations about passenger behaviour on aircraft, obeying crew instructions, and so on. But this has arguably been less of a safety department responsibility than a part of service-related training — not quite squeezed in between wine-pouring and tray-tidying, but almost.
Do airlines need to be more proactive about explicitly linking onboard passenger behaviour and disruption to their safety culture? And how can flight deck crew contribute, on both sides of the cabin door?
Posen relates a discussion he had with Qantas pilot Richard de Crespigny, who made it a habit of getting out of the flight deck to walk around the cabin of his aircraft. The very visible presence of the psychological authority figure that is an airline captain helps both to reassure nervous passengers that a trained, experienced professional is in charge and to dissuade disruptive (or potentially disruptive) passengers from disruption.
On smaller aircraft, single-aisle, single-cabin narrow-bodies for example, this same reassurance can be given by the captain doing a welcome and informational announcement from the interphone by doors, instead of from behind the flight deck door.
“I think the travelling population does want to see someone in charge running the show, who won’t brook any ifs and buts and maybes,” Posen says.
Australia provides some early return-to-normal food for thought
With Australia being one of the most successful countries in containing and then moving towards eradicating COVID-19, we asked Posen how passengers there in an early stage of domestic recovery have been reacting in terms of health and safety in the airport and on the aircraft.
“People here in Melbourne have been — at least as I walked through the airports, taking flights in the last month — very compliant with masks. You’re told well in advance, and they have supplies for you, so there’s no excuses.”
Cabin crew have changed their boarding and welcome announcements to add extra information around precautions and increase passenger safety confidence, although inflight safety videos have yet to be updated.
Even Australia is, of course, in the early days of the recovery, and there may well still be questions of shifting expectations onboard leading to disruption.
One could be the interface between mask compliance and well-intentioned policing of the aircraft cabin by fellow passengers — who do not have crew de-escalation training — for example.
This question, fraught with increasing social tribalism of our times, is a complicated one. But, Posen says, airlines “have been through this before with conformity with seatbelts, with the use of electronic devices.”
“I would think that you’d posit this as a safety thing for everybody on board,” he suggests. “It’s an extension of what you do with your electronic devices, using your seatbelt, having the seat tray up, having your chair [seatback] up: there are standard protocols, and this is, I think, an addition to that.”
What digital tools are at airlines’ disposal to help improve passenger confidence?
More than ever before, airlines can leverage digital tools and media to make passengers feel that they’re taking health and safety seriously. This could range from the most basic of periodic informational and reminder emails between booking and travel to explain what’s being done, through traditional media campaigns like safety experts appearing on morning and drivetime/dinnertime TV or radio shows, all the way through to web advertising or campaigns using new media platform options like YouTube, Instagram and TikTok.
On the day of travel, options would include airport signage and “read more” options, traditional inflight magazines and tannoy announcements, all the way up to splash pages on the inflight wifi connection, QR codes to scan on headrests or other printed materials, Bluetooth beacons, app notifications, text messages and more.
Cabin safety representatives could be available even to present information on the ground — distanced from passengers, of course — or on video screens, to detail the measures being taken via overhead speakers.
Fundamentally, says Posen, “the more knowledge that can be appropriately applied, the safer they’re going to end up feeling.”
However, there will always remain a subset of travellers for whom knowledge and understanding still does not drive the necessary levels of compliance with regulations — whether that’s masks today or standing up to get bags before reaching the gate on arrival. Will the stream of communications and information flush them out, shine a spotlight on them, and engender cooperation?
Join the conversation
We’re talking about this in in our industry challenges area, let us know what you think – what do airlines need to do in a post-COVID world to inspire greater passenger confidence?
by John Walton
09-Feb-2021
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