Giving a Face to Airline Customer Satisfaction: A Graphic Approach

Working towards zero accidents – Experience from education and supervision of pilots and air traffic controllers (ATC) from the Royal Danish Air Force gives us a model on how to apply the latest clinical psychology methods and research, and combine it with Human Factor models. What is behind accidents? Errors, so can you talk about zero errors? Everyone knows that this is utopia; the question is rather how we can understand errors, minimize errors and minimize the effect of errors. The goal of this paper is to contribute to a theoretical and practical understanding of how to use the research results of clinical psychology methods, hence the elements that you can transfer to a teaching situation to provide tools to be able to handle errors. In light of research findings from the clinical cognitive behavioral psychology, it is pertinent to examine the transfer values for teaching pilots and ATC. The following methods, concepts and materials have been used: • Cognitive model of the mind • Acceptance • Focusing mentally and Visualization • Reformulation The clinical research findings presented in the paper is based on a literature review. Results in relation to transfer values presented in this paper are based on written and oral evaluation from the pilots and ATC after teaching. Therefore, the scaling results cannot be understood as evidence-based, instead, it is seen as an indication of how strategies from clinical psychology can be used in education of pilots/ATC to influence the self-perception and hereby reduce the amount and the impact of errors for the participants. Therefore, the paper can be used as an inspiration to practical use and further research. Introduction Before I started working in the area of Aviation Psychology I used several different treatment methods working as a clinical psychologist. Therefore, I have been very interested in the evidence of treatment methods. The idea to look into a transformation of methods from the world of clinical psychology treatment to the world of Aviation Psychology, emerged when I was teaching a course in psychology to pilot trainees within the Danish Defense. During the course, it became clear that some of the students feared making mistakes during flights, and they wanted to discuss how they could prevent errors. My interest to see how strategies from clinical treatment methods could be converted into teaching situations with the focus of how to handle mistakes and errors grew from these discussions. Now, the teaching has developed to not only relate to pilot students but also to students within Air Traffic Controlling (ATC), pilots and ATC’s in various courses of continuing training (including in their CRM/TRM, instructorand aviation safety training courses). The reason I identified the relationship between clinical treatment and minimizing human errors was the basic element of psychology in both subjects. An essential part of clinical therapy is giving the client an understanding of the perception he has of himself as well as of the surrounding world, and furthermore making the client see how he can think or understand himself in different ways. The underlying idea of this education is to provide the client the strategies to take action, obtain a better capability to understand himself and his surroundings, and therefore also the possibility to change his reactions, e.g. in situations that may occur during a flight. It is especially this connection between treatment and education that makes it extremely interesting and relevant to develop and explore the effects of using methods from clinical therapy in Aviation Psychology. Evidence‐based treatment There is a long tradition within therapy to study the evidence of the treatments. In 1999 Hubble, et al. published a meta-analysis based on the last 40 years of research and they summarized what worked in therapy. The results identified some general factors or basic elements which should be in place in the treatment to obtain a positive result, meaning the client would get better after therapy. Hubble et al. concluded that four general elements were present, (1) Extratherapeutic Factors (the client factor) which accounted for 40% (2) the Relationship Factor that accounted for 30%, (3) the Hope and Expectations Factor which accounted for 15% and (4) the Model and Technology Factor that accounted for 15%.