Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2007
City
Dayton
Abstract
The purpose of this present study was twofold: firstly to test the psychometric appropriateness of the Commercial Aviation Safety Survey (CASS) for flight operations developed at the University of Illinois, in non-US environment, and secondly to assess the current state of organizational safety culture at a European airline. To achieve these objectives the CASS was administered in a web-based format to the flight operations department at a major European air carrier. The respondents reflected a representative employee distribution and a response rate of 31 percent. The internal consistency of the CASS indicated adequate reliability (all scores above 0.70). The survey revealed a generally positive safety culture that was broadly speaking, average, with the perception that management tended to lean toward delegating safety responsibilities to others in some areas and leaned toward collaborative safety efforts in other areas. The safety culture at this airline appears to be strongest in the areas of Middle Management (e.g. operations personnel) and weakest in the area of Organizational Commitment (e.g. going beyond compliance). Findings also show significant negative correlations between employees at the airline fifteen years or less and their perceptions of the airline’s safety culture. We compared these results to that of a US based airline. It is evident that this survey is capable of distinguishing between different safety cultures whether in America or Europe. Methodological considerations and improvements to the survey are also discussed.
Repository Citation
von Thaden, T. L.,
& Ragnarsdóttir, S.
(2007). Measuring Safety Culture in a Non-Us Airline Using the Commercial Aviation Safety Survey. 2007 International Symposium on Aviation Psychology, 733-738.
https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/isap_2007/10
