Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts
Showing posts with label communication. Show all posts

Monday, April 30, 2012

INQUIRY AND ADVOCACY IN THE COCKPIT

Srinivas Rao | 12:05 AM | | | | | | Best Blogger Tips

 Inquiry is “A search for knowledge, or an instance of questioning” and Advocacy is “Active support of an idea or cause etc.” as per Webster dictionary.Inquiry and advocacy has been jointly addressed by Human Factors experts and lets examine its importance in the cockpit.

INTER-COCKPIT

There is a dire need for inquiry in the cockpit and the need for crew to be in the loop and only way is for either crew to communicate and inquire. Typically, Captain must encourage inquiry from the fellow crew member to enhance safety and make the fellow crew comfortable in doing so without any fear of  reprisal or retribution.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

CABIN AND FLIGHT CREW COMMUNICATION DURING UNLAWFUL INTERFERENCE

G R Mohan | 1:47 AM | | | | | Best Blogger Tips

As we move towards an era of diverging job functions assigned to cabin crew and flight crew, a single barrier that catalyses this divide is the cockpit door.  Increasingly, this door has served to alienate and undermine the bonding that existed between the two sets of operating crew on board. During pre-flight briefing we go through the motions of communication and cockpit access protocol during normal and conditions where security of the cabin is breached.

Saturday, April 7, 2012

REFERENTIAL COMMUNICATION

G R Mohan | 4:10 PM | | | | Best Blogger Tips

To communicate referentially is to speak so that others will understand and to listen so that you will understand others or know when you have not. People at all levels can be poor referential communicators, depending in part the complexity of variables that enters into the communication situations. 
 
A scientist, for example, may be unable to communicate successfully with a layperson about a “quark” because of the difficulty of the subject matter and difference in vocabulary between the two people.
Referential communication skills involve the ability to provide and understand specific information. These skills are important in cockpit environment to give directions, explanations and situational briefings. The evolution of standard communication phraseology in aviation was necessitated from these differences in vocabularies of individuals engaged in a complex activity. In a rapidly changing environment, it is also necessary that crew is able to communicate effectively, succinctly and without ambiguity. Be it routine procedures, emergency handling or a high stress situation like evacuation, clear and unambiguous communication is essential.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

FLIGHT CREW AND CABIN CREW COMMUNICATION

G R Mohan | 7:32 AM | | | | | Best Blogger Tips


Today's cabin crew are highly trained, highly skilled, and centre on safety as the core of their job function. And, just like the pilots, many have been trained in crew resource management principles. However, some recent findings have uncovered some disturbing facts about the division of responsibilities and safety issues between the cockpit (pilots) and the cabin crew (Cabin crew). The underlying goal for both the pilots and Cabin crew is the safe and efficient completion of a flight. Yet, there has been an unrelenting division of these groups in times of emergencies as well as routine operations. How could this be? As a layperson, you would assume that these groups would be highly cohesive by nature, and yet the opposite has been shown to be true.

The problem with pilot and flight attendant teamwork, particularly in the area of communications, has its roots in the disparate job functions of both groups. When speaking of pilots, it is a mostly male dominated profession. Conversely, when speaking of Cabin crew, it is a mostly female dominated profession. It should be noted, however, that there has been an increased percentage of "gender balancing" over the last few decades for both groups. Theoretically speaking, and this comes from basic innate gender characteristics, male and female thought processes could be somewhat divergent. This is not to say that there is an abundance of testosterone in the cockpit or that females may be influenced by their inherent affective nature, but the gender differences do have to be considered when groups are segregated into mostly male versus mostly female categories.

Besides gender influences, the most salient reason for division in these groups appears to lie in the division of job functions and responsibilities. The cockpit crew is separated from the cabin crew by not only physical barriers (the door), but also communicative barriers (most communication is conducted through an impersonal interphone). Until relatively recently, pilots considered the cockpit "their territory" while the Cabin crew considered the cabin "their territory." Typically, the only times that these two groups would interface was when the pilots needed to be fed, or in the event of an emergency.

"the basic problem is that these two crews represent two distinct and separate cultures, and that this separation serves to inhibit satisfactory teamwork."

Well, we have - the pilots and the Cabin crew have respect amongst one another as friends but when it comes to working as a crew, we don't work as a crew. We work as two crews. You have a front-end crew and a back-end crew, and we are looked upon as serving coffee and lunch and things like that.

By now you have seen the magnitude of the problem; two groups, two cultures, and two completely separate job functions. The pilots, who work in the small but highly complex cockpit—and the Cabin crew, who come from the service-oriented and spacious cabin—having difficulties bringing their environments closer together and working in harmony.

Pilots and Cabin crew need to understand the basic psychology of group dynamics and the positive effect that pre-flight briefings can have between groups. Many pilots and Cabin crew may have never worked together before and yet both of these groups tend to remain isolated before, during, and after a flight. Some captains are better with an introduction and a briefing than others. But overall, there tends to be a "chill in the air" during pre-flight routines.



Saturday, December 10, 2011

COMMUNICATION. : Expectation Bias and Hear Back Errors

Srinivas Rao | 4:30 PM | | | | | | Best Blogger Tips
 Crew suffer from expectation bias if they are very familiar with say a clearance on a particular route which they have been frequenting more often.Crew tend to transpose information/clearance received with what is expected by them based on their familiarity or routine experience. This coupled with hear back error by ATC or in other words no correction by ATC to the misread clearance/ instruction could result in breach of safety and catastrophic consequences.  Share your thoughts, experiences and feedback on this topic by commenting on the same.