The Impact of Covid-19 on Human Factors in the Aircraft Maintenance Environment - Effects within Approved Aircraft Maintenance Organisations Operating in Malta

Abstract

Since the aviation industry itself creates a risky environment, a high levelof safety must be ensured during the flight of an aircraft. Aircraft maintenance up tohigh standards is a main requirement intended to ensure the safety of flights and hascontributed to drastically reduce the number of aviation accidents. In addition, for everyaviation accident the cause must be identified to prevent re-occurrence and reduce thenumber further down the line. Statistically, most aviation accidents occurring nowadaysare due to human errors, making awareness of human factors in every area of aviation veryimportant, including the maintenance area. With the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic in2020, peoples everyday life across the whole world was affected. The aviation industrywas heavily impacted by this pandemic with reduction in aviation operations, affectingairports, airlines, as well as approved aircraft maintenance organisations. The effect ofCOVID-19 on human factors has been both physiological and psychological. Since thephysiological and psychological aspects of human factors are known to have considerableeffects on the human error element in aviation, it can be concluded that with COVID-19the risk of committing errors in aviation has increased. This research is aimed to discoverthe element of such increased risk in aviation, particularly within the aircraft maintenanceenvironment. Research participants are people working in the aircraft maintenanceenvironment. Several independent variables identified from the literature review, known toaffect an identified dependent variable, form an initial conceptual framework. A survey hasbeen conducted through which exploratory statements have been set up to address theindependent variables, each in a context of the impact of human factors on the requiredsafety standards in aircraft maintenance. Data collected from a total of 75 respondents hasbeen checked for validity using a test question inserted in the survey. This has given a totalof 68 valid responses which have been analysed. Analysis has been conducted using SPSSSoftware. Analysis for data consistency revealed an acceptable Cronbachs Alpha value ofover 0.8. SPSS which was then used to carry out dimension reduction using ExploratoryFactor Analysis (EFA). Through the EFA technique the number of independent variableshas been reduced for further research from 22 to 6. Final analysis of the data shows thatmost of the respondents agree that in general Covid-19 has had a similar impact on humanfactors in aircraft maintenance, as it has had on the rest of the aviation industry. Based onthis research it is suggested that measures should be taken so that a phenomenon likea pandemic situation, that would affect the physiological and psychological aspects ofpeople, is addressed in the human factors element of aviation, in particular the aircraftmaintenance environment. The pilot-study conducted also sets up a basis for futureresearch in human factors in aircraft maintenance, and how they can be influenced bysituations that can pose higher risks for a person to commit errors while performing workrelated to aviation, particularly while carrying out aircraft maintenance performance andcertification activities before an aircraft can be released for further flights.