Airbus. Getting to Grips with Fatigue & Alertness Management

Issue 3. Flight Operations Support & Line Assistance. Customer Services. Airbus S. A. S., 2004. — 197 p.Aircrew fatigue during long-haul flights is recognized as one of the major constraints that can impair performance. Using physiological recordings on 196 flights, previous work has shown that reductions in alertness are frequent during flights, including the descent and approach phase (Cabon et al, 1993). Most decreases in alertness occurred during the monotonous part of the cruise and were often observed simultaneously on both pilots in two person crews. Based on these results, specific operational recommendations have been designed. Further studies have shown the positive effects of these recommendations (Cabon et al, 1995a). These recommendations were gathered into a booklet for the use of long-haul aircrews (Cabon et al, 1995b, Mollard et al, 1995). There were initially issued in French by the DGAC and an English version has been issued by Airbus (Speyer et al, 1997), a Chinese version also being available. The English version was distributed by Airbus to more than 6000 samples. This is the third and most updated version including maiden recommendations for ULR flights still to be validated notwithstanding. A new edition will complete this aspect after validation.