Just thought I may be in a position to respond to the question of flight
attendant participation in CRM. I am a flight attendant and a CRM
developer/facilitator at Canadian Regional Airlines. We're the third
largest airline in Canada and a wholly owned subsidiary of Canadian
Airlines International. We have been conducting joint flight ops,
in-flight, and maintenance CRM training for the past three years. If
possible, we also have participants from operations control including
dispatchers, crew schedulers, etc. We call the program "Company Resource
Management".
The class is an 8 hour program with all departments represented and
engaged in the human factors learning process together. We have found
that the concepts covered are universally accepted by all members of the
team, regardless of job function. We attempt to use case studies that
include breakdowns beyond the cockpit and have been very succesful
utilizing examples such as the Air Ontario Dryden accident and the
Nationair accident in Jeddah.
Needless to say, discussions sometimes become heated, however the
feedback we have received has overwhelmingly indicated that the program
helps to bridge the gap between these departments while identifying each
groups role in breaking the links in the error chain.
One last note, each class is co-facilitated by a pilot, a flight
attendant, and a ground person (either a dispatcher or engineer). If
anyone has any questions about the program, feel free to contact me.
Claudine Campbell
Canadian Regional Airlines