Identifying flight fatigue factors: An econometric modeling approach

Abstract

The paper looks at responses of crewmembers of six Taiwan air carriers who were asked to report their levels of fatigue before takeoff and after landing. Ordinal probit models are employed to estimate three fatigue models for different flight operations and serve as vehicles to investigate flight fatigue factors and identify their relative significance. The top three factors for long haul flights are found to be sleep quality at home, sleep quality on aircraft and “nod-off “experiences; for regional flights, age, extra non-flying tasks on the ground, and experiences of fatigue during flight operations are important; and for domestic flights poor cockpit environment, age, and experiences of fatigue during flight operations are relevant.