An Analysis of Human Factor Aspects in Operational Fuel Saving

Over the last few years, the reduction of operational costs and control of pollutant emissions have become central issues for the commercial aviation industry, and as a result, airlines have been increasingly focusing their attention on operational fuel saving techniques. However, even though the practical implementation and economic potential of these techniques have been exemplified in a number of papers, little research has been dedicated to a systemic investigation of the effects of operational fuel saving on the human component of the system, i.e., the flight crew of an aircraft. This research examines this area, and investigates the human factors aspects in context with the application of operational fuel saving on the Airbus A 320 series aircraft. The study presents a detailed analysis of the flight crew´s performance and motivational factors related to the topic of interest, which were investigated by means of an online survey and a controlled simulator experiment. Results of the analysis revealed that the application of operational fuel saving imposes a number of latent performance impairments on the flight crew. Motivational factors were shown to be disrupted by the flight crew´s inability to achieve satisfaction from the application of operational fuel saving. The implications of these findings are wide-ranging, as they show, in essence, that the system´s safety and efficiency relies solely on the flight crew´s cognitive flexibility and workload compensation capability, while structured analyses and conceptual frameworks in regard to the human factors aspects of operational fuel saving are absent.