Journal of Air Transport Management 47 (2015) 162e171

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Journal of Air Transport Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jairtraman

Safety climate of a commercial airline: A cross-sectional comparison

of four occupational groups
Yi Gao*, Peter J. Bruce, Natalia Rajendran
Department of Aviation, Faculty of Science, Engineering and Technology, Swinburne University of Technology, Australia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study aimed to assess the safety climate of a major commercial airline from the AsiaePacific region
Received 28 January 2015 using a self-developed online survey instrument. Besides getting an holistic view of the safety culture of
Received in revised form the company at the time of the survey, separate analyses were conducted among different occupational
15 May 2015
groups and within each group to test if occupations and employment experience had any effect on
Accepted 28 May 2015
employees' perception of safety climate. The results of the analyses suggested that the overall safety
Available online 7 June 2015
climate of the airline was generally robust across different occupations. Statistical analysis demonstrated
that effect of employment history was significant across different occupations. Variance in safety climate
Keywords:
Aviation safety
among the different occupational groups was also identified in the analysis, indicating the possible
Safety climate existence of sub-cultures within each group. In addition to providing a “snapshot” of the safety culture of
Safety culture the subject airline, this study has the potential of being used as a safety culture analysis template, with
Commercial airlines certain customizations, by other airlines/organizations.
Cross-sectional comparison © 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Since the concept of safety culture being first applied in the
energy industry following the Chernobyl disaster (International
Atomic Energy Agency, 1986), several safety-critical industries,
such as health care (Gurses et al., 2012), petroleum (Mearns and
Yule, 2009), and manufacturing (Clarke, 2006) started to adopt
this concept in order to improve the overall safety performance.
The term safety culture can be interpreted as “an enduring and
stable concept defined at the group level or higher that refers to the
shared values among all the group members and emphasizes the
contribution from everyone at every level of an organization” (Gao
et al., 2013, p. 17). A similar but different term; safety climate, on the
other hand, refers to “the temporary state of safety culture” and is the
“perceived state of safety at a particular place at a particular time”
(Wiegmann et al., 2002, p. 10). In an organizational context, safety
climate studies have focused on interpreting individual and orga-
nizational characteristics (Denison, 1996). Various studies have
shown that differences exist between organizations, between sec-
tions within organizations (Coyle et al., 1995; Glendon and
* Corresponding author. Mail H38, PO Box 218, Hawthorn, Victoria, Australia.
E-mail address: ygao@swin.edu.au (Y. Gao).
Litherland, 2001; Zohar, 2000) and between levels within the
sections themselves (Niskanen, 1994).
The link between perceptions of safety climate and safety per-
formance has been previously studied (Zohar, 2000), and some
studies have demonstrated a relationship between climate surveys
and other safety measures. For instance, Varonen and Mattila
(2000) showed that perceptions of safety climate correlated with
levels of safety in the work environment and with the safety
practices of the organization. They found that organizations with
below average accident rates had better safety climate scores.
In the domain of the aviation industry, several studies have
analyzed the safety climate of various industry occupational groups
including commercial pilots (Evans et al., 2007; Gao et al., 2013),
cabin crew (Kao et al., 2009), ground handlers (Ek and Akselsson,
2007; Zohar, 1980), mechanics/engineers (McDonald et al., 2000),
and air traffic controllers (Bergheim et al., 2013; Ek et al., 2007).
Some researchers have included more than one occupational
group of the aviation industry in their studies to conduct a cross-
sectional comparison. For example, Patankar (2003) studied the
safety culture of flight operations personnel, maintenance
personnel, and other personnel from one aviation organization
using the same questionnaire for all cohorts. Significant differences
were found among these occupational groups in terms of pride in
the company, safety opinions, and supervisor trust. Similarly, Gill

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jairtraman.2015.05.010
0969-6997/© 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 47 (2015) 162e171
and Shergill (2004) surveyed employees' perceptions of safety
management and safety culture of multiple occupational groups of
the New Zealand civil aviation industry, including pilots and
maintenance engineers in the core business areas such as flight
training and helicopter operations. Their study found that em-
ployees were not perceived to be giving much importance to safety
management systems and safety culture in New Zealand aviation
organizations.
This current study aimed to assess the “current” safety climate
of four different occupational groups of a major commercial airline
from the AsiaePacific region. Separate analyses were conducted
within each occupational group and between groups to test if oc-
cupations, employment experience, and rank had any effect on
employees' perception of the company's safety climate. It was
anticipated that the result of this study would help the airline
better understand the overall safety culture of the entire company
and improve the overall safety performance of the airline.
Studies relating to safety climate/culture of aviation organiza-
tions are not new to the aviation research community, as seen from
the studies cited above. Besides addressing the safety climate of the
subject airline, the current study also aims to introduce an instru-
ment to analyze the sub-culture of various departments within the
same aviation organization. As the process of analysis is economical
and readily reproducible, any aviation organization, regardless of
its size, can adopt such an instrument and use the results of the
current study as a benchmark to assess their own safety climate.
2. Method
An online survey, hosted by an external website, was used in this
study to gather perceptions of employees with regard to various
safety climate related survey items. The link to the survey ques-
tionnaire was distributed to staff members of four different occu-
pational groups of the airline, which were flight crew, cabin crew,
engineers (mechanics), and ground/network operations staff. The
online survey portal was open for three weeks in November 2012
for data collection. Participation of the survey was completely
voluntary and anonymous, and no identifiable information was
collected from survey participants.
The survey questionnaire comprised three parts and was
developed from a survey instrument used in a previous study (Gao
et al., 2013). Part 1 of the questionnaire collected basic de-
mographic information such as gender, age (in ranges), years of
employment with the company, base, and employment position.
Part 2, related to general safety related items, and included 33
statements that asked participants to indicate their agreement or
disagreement with these statements on a five-point likert-scale
ranging from “Strongly agree” to “Strongly disagree”. All items were
reverse scored in the analyses so that higher scores represent
agreement. Among these statements, 30 items (1e30) were
designed around four safety themes; namely Safety Philosophy,
Safety Feedback, Safety Promotion and Communication, and Safety
Reporting. Item 31 was included to investigate the reporting pref-
erence of employees, and Items 32 and 33 were designed to
compare perceptions of safety attitudes between the respondents'
own occupational group and other occupations. Part 3 of the survey
was intended for people who have used the safety reporting system
(SRS) in the past 12 months to report a safety occurrence. This part
was designed for a more in-depth analysis of the Safety Reporting
of the company, which was a deficient area identified in the pre-
vious safety survey of the same company. Comments boxes were
provided in both Parts 2 and 3 to collect information that was not
captured by pre-structured survey items so that valuable opinions
of staff regarding safety would not be missed by the survey. While
the questions in Part 1 varied slightly to suit different occupational
163
groups, Parts 2 and 3 were identical for all four groups for the
purpose of analysis and comparison. See Appendix A for Parts 2 and
3 of the questionnaire used.
After survey responses were collected from participants across
the four occupational groups, exploratory factor analysis was used
to analyze responses to Part 2 of the survey to determine if the four
themes were well represented by the survey items. See Appendix B
for the Pattern Matrix, Structure Matrix, and Factor Correlation
Matrix of the factor analysis. Subsequently a multivariate analysis of
variance was performed to test if there were significant differences
among the four occupational groups in terms of participants' per-
ceptions across the four safety themes. The effects of rank and
employment history on perceptions of safety were also tested in
this project across all four occupational groups.
From the comments collected in Parts 2 and 3, qualitative
analysis was conducted to examine issues raised by employees with
regards to safety or other specific safety occurrences. The com-
ments were coded and interpreted according to the same safety
themes as identified in the exploratory factor analysis with the
anticipation that results of the qualitative analysis would be com-
plementary to findings of the statistical analyses.
3. Results
3.1. Demographics
Collectively, the survey achieved an overall response rate of
25.4% from 6229 employees (as of 20 Nov 2012) representing the
four occupational groups of the airline. Notably, the response rate of
engineers was 64.9%. See Fig. 1 for survey response rates of all four
occupational groups.
Demographics collected from the survey depicted the overall
distribution of gender, age, and employment history of survey
participants. In terms of gender, male staff dominated the pilot and
the engineer groups, as both are traditionally considered male
professions in the aviation industry, whereas there were more fe-
males than males in the cabin crew group. In terms of age, most
employees were between the ages of 21 and 50, with the age dis-
tribution of the cabin crew and ground/network operations groups
skewed to the younger side. Lastly with regards to employment
history, about half of the respondents had worked in the company
for 1e5 years. See Table 1 for details of demographics of
respondents.
3.2. Exploratory factor analysis
Responses to survey items 1e30 in Part 2 were subjected to a
series of Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) using SPSS Version 20.
Prior to performing the analyses, the suitability of the data for EFA
Fig. 1. Survey response rates of all four occupational groups.
164 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 47 (2015) 162e171

Table 1
Basic demographics of survey participants.

Department Gender Age Years in company

Male Female 18e20 21e30 31e40 41e50 51e60 >60 <1 1e5 6e10 >10

Pilots 295 12 0 30 100 123 46 8 10 153 86 58

Cabin Crew 198 382 5 227 217 108 21 2 48 341 156 35
Engineers 233 12 0 21 77 88 44 15 21 98 77 49
Ground Ops 224 186 8 134 171 64 26 7 69 205 73 63

Overall 950 592 13 412 565 383 137 32 148 797 392 205

was assessed using a Principal Components Analysis (PCA). In-
spection of the correlation matrix revealed the presence of suffi-
cient coefficients of 0.3 and above. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin value
was 0.97, exceeding the recommended value of .6 (Kaiser, 1970,
1974) and Barlett's Test of Sphericity (Barlett, 1954) reached sta-
tistical significance, supporting the factorability of the correlation
matrix. The Principal Components Analysis (PCA) revealed the
presence of four components with eigenvalues exceeding 1,
explaining 46.25%, 6.93%, 5.33% and 4.24% of the variance, respec-
tively. An inspection of the screen plot revealed a clear break after
the fourth component (Catell, 1966). A four-factor solution was also
supported by Velicer's Minimum Average Partial (MAP) test. Five
items (items 10, 20, 21, 23 and 30) were eventually eliminated
because they did not contribute to a simple factor structure due to
cross-loadings. The resultant survey comprised 25 of the original 30
items in Part 2 of the survey instrument.
In the final analysis, using a principal axis factoring extraction
method with an Oblimin rotation, the rotated solution revealed the
presence of a simple structure, with all four factors showing a
number of strong loadings and all variables loading substantially on
only one factor. The four-factor solution explained a total of 59.4% of
the variance, with factor 1 contributing 46.38%, factor 2 contrib-
uting 5.48%, factor 3 contributing 4.27%, and factor 4 contributing
3.26%. The interpretation of the four factors was consistent with the
constructs intended to be measured. These factors were named
Safety Philosophy, Safety Reporting, Safety Feedback, and Safety Pro-
motion & Communication. Furthermore, the reliability of each factor
(as evident by the internal consistency of the items constituting
each factor) was found to be good, with Cronbach's alphas of 0.92,
0.86, 0.89 and 0.86, respectively.
See Appendix B (Tables 10e12) for the Pattern Matrix, Factor
Matrix, and Factor Correlation Matrix respectively.
participants generally agreed that safety was valued as a high pri-
ority by the company. However, when safety was compared with
operational on time performance (e.g. OTP) in the same survey
item, participants responded slightly differently. Responses from all
four occupational groups to survey items 4, 5 and 9 revealed that
certain participants were concerned that safety might be compro-
mised under operational pressures. Also compared with the atti-
tude of the company towards safety, participants were less
optimistic about the actual resources invested by the company to
improve safety.
3.3.2. Safety reporting
The theme Safety Reporting covers six items in the survey (See
Table 3). Among these items, item 28 -My company encourages
employees to identify and to report safety issues, hazards or occur-
rences, received the highest agreement from all four occupational
groups, which showed that the transparent attitude of the company
towards safety occurrence reporting was well recognized across the
different groups.
Four other items; 24, 25, 26, and 27, also received generally
favorable responses. The results showed that the employees of the
company understood their obligations and were willing to file a
safety report, no matter whether the occurrence was committed by
themselves or their colleagues.
Compared with other items, responses to item 29 were slightly
less positive, especially among pilots and engineers, indicating that
even if an employee filed a safety report after safety occurrences, he
or she was still somehow concerned about possible punitive actions
as a result of the report. The result identifies that further clarifi-
cation of the impact of safety reporting might be needed in order to
strengthen the “No Blame” reporting culture within the company.

3.3.3. Safety feedback

3.3. Safety themes
3.3.1. Safety Philosophy
The theme Safety Philosophy comprises nine survey items (See
Table 2). Among these, items 1, 2, 3 and 7 had received consistently
higher agreement from all four occupational groups, indicating that
The theme of Safety Feedback included five survey items (See
Table 4). Compared with the other three themes, Safety Feedback
was rated the lowest consistently by all four occupational groups.
Employees in general were not very satisfied with the feedback
they received from the company after filing safety reports. In
particular, engineers reported a consistently lower agreement to all

Table 2
Responses to Safety Philosophy related items.

Related survey items Pilots Cabin crew Engineers Ground ops

Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Mean S.D.

Item 5. Safety has higher priority than getting the job done in my company. 3.78 0.88 3.65 0.99 3.74 0.93 3.76 1.02
Item 1. My company regards safety as high priority. 4.27 0.71 4.41 0.65 4.26 0.68 4.40 0.68
Item 2. Management of my company has a very clear commitment to safety. 4.10 0.75 4.24 0.75 4.15 0.77 4.25 0.77
Item 4. My company does not cut corners when safety is concerned. 3.76 0.90 3.97 0.95 3.78 0.92 3.95 0.98
Item 9. My company values safety over on time performance (OTP). 3.60 0.96 3.31 1.15 3.64 0.91 3.63 1.12
Item 8. Everyone in my company regards safety as high priority. 3.61 0.90 3.64 0.96 3.74 0.80 3.83 0.89
Item 6. My company is willing to invest resources to improve the overall safety level. 3.65 0.83 3.88 0.82 3.51 0.95 3.69 0.95
Item 3. My company encourages safety issues, hazards and occurrences to be reported. 4.41 0.56 4.54 0.59 4.36 0.61 4.42 0.63
Item 7. Management views safety regulation violations very seriously even when they 4.07 0.68 4.09 0.78 4.09 0.74 4.22 0.79
do not result in any apparent damage.
 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 47 (2015) 162e171 165

Table 3
Responses to Safety Reporting related items.

Pilots Cabin crew Engineers Ground ops

Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Mean S.D.

Item 25. I am willing to report any safety issue, 3.96 0.81 4.15 0.73 3.93 0.91 4.15 0.73
hazard or occurrence without fear of consequence, even if I contributed to the cause.
Item 26. I am willing to report any safety issue, 3.91 0.64 4.12 0.68 3.89 0.81 4.12 0.68
hazard or occurrence resulting from the actions of a fellow crew member.
Item 24. I am comfortable approaching the Safety Systems team to discuss a safety matter. 3.90 0.81 3.97 0.76 3.82 0.87 3.97 0.76
Item 29. My company has established a “No Blame” culture in 3.67 0.96 3.91 0.85 3.38 1.06 3.91 0.85
terms of using the safety reporting system.
Item 28. My company encourages employees to identify and to 4.14 0.56 4.25 0.62 4.07 0.68 4.25 0.62
report safety issues, hazards or occurrences.
Item 27. In my company, everyone is given sufficient 3.75 0.71 3.89 0.81 3.79 0.79 3.89 0.81
opportunities to make suggestions regarding safety issues.

Table 4
Responses to safety feedback related items.

Pilots Cabin crew Engineers Ground ops

Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Mean S.D.

Item 14. I receive feedback from the 3.20 1.06 3.18 1.06 2.90 1.05 3.26 0.98
company as a result of safety issues raised by me.
Item 15. I receive feedback from the 3.17 0.94 3.32 0.93 2.89 0.96 3.32 0.97
company as a result of safety issues raised by other employees.
Item 12. I am confident that if I report a safety issue, 3.59 0.92 3.77 0.84 3.34 0.97 3.65 0.92
hazard or occurrence, it will be processed in a timely manner.
Item 11. I am satisfied with the way my company handles safety reports. 3.39 0.97 3.62 0.92 3.31 1.04 3.68 0.84
Item 13. I believe my company learns and makes appropriate 3.55 0.91 3.84 0.81 3.49 0.96 3.75 0.84
changes as a result of following up safety occurrences.

safety feedback related survey items, indicating a lack of response
within the engineer group and dissatisfaction of engineers.
Compared with the other three items regarding Safety Feedback,
results of items 12 and 13 showed that participants across the four
occupational groups had marginal confidence that their voices
could be heard by the company and that the company would learn
and make appropriate change as a result of safety occurrences.
3.3.4. Safety promotion & communication
The theme of Safety Promotion and Communication covered five
items in the survey questionnaire (See Table 5). Responses to these
survey items indicated that in general, staff were aware of safety-
related publications of the company and had sufficient access to
safety-related information. They were also satisfied with the safety
related communication at the company level and safety docu-
mentation at the department level.
In comparison, responses to item 16, concerning the effective-
ness of safety training provided by the airline, received consistently
lower agreement from staff of all four occupational groups,
revealing that employees were expecting more effective safety
training from the company.
3.3.5. Cross-sectional comparison of safety climate themes
One of the aims of this project was to investigate if there was any
difference in terms of the perceptions of safety climate among staff
of different occupational groups. Survey participants across four
occupational groups were compared in terms of four safety themes
using MANOVA and Student Newman Keuls (SNK) post hoc tests.
Significant differences were found in safety perceptions amongst
the occupational groups across the various safety themes (Pillai's
Trace ¼ 0.20; F(15,3576) ¼ 16.89, p < 0.001, partial s2 ¼ 0.07). See
Table 6 for the means and standard deviations across the occupa-
tional groups for the four different safety themes.
Univariate tests revealed there were significant differences in
the mean scores between the occupational groups for Safety
Feedback (F(3,1196) ¼ 12.22, p < 0.001, partial s2 ¼ 0.03); SNK
(p < .05) post hoc tests revealed engineers reported significantly
lower scores, on average, than the three other occupational groups.
Pilots reported significantly lower scores, on average, than ground
operations and cabin crew; while no significant difference was
found between ground operations and cabin crew. In terms of re-
sponses regarding Safety Feedback, the ranking of the four occu-
pational groups from more favorable to less favorable resulted in
higher levels for cabin crew & ground operations than pilots, who
in turn, were higher than engineers.
In terms of Safety Reporting, univariate tests revealed there were
significant differences in the mean scores between the occupa-
tional groups (F(3,1196) ¼ 8.61, p < 0.001, partial s2 ¼ 0.02); SNK

Table 5
Responses to safety promotion & communication related items.

Pilots Cabin crew Engineers Ground ops

Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Mean S.D. Mean S.D.

Item 19. The company readily communicates 3.73 0.74 4.13 0.70 3.68 0.81 3.97 0.72
changes to the safety systems that affect me.
Item 18. I am aware of company developed safety-related publications. 3.95 0.58 4.09 0.62 3.77 0.73 4.00 0.65
Item 17. I have sufficient access to safety-related information. 3.76 0.75 4.11 0.63 3.80 0.71 4.01 0.65
Item 16. Training on safety topics as developed by the company is effective. 3.53 0.76 3.82 0.76 3.36 0.82 3.66 0.84
Item 22. My department has current safe work procedures 3.91 0.64 3.97 0.71 3.58 0.81 3.79 0.79
documented for tasks that carry safety risks.
166 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 47 (2015) 162e171

Table 6
Comparison of safety themes among different occupational groups.

Pilots (n ¼ 233) Cabin crew (n ¼ 445) Engineers (n ¼ 198) Ground ops. (n ¼ 322)

Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD Mean SD

Safety philosophy 3.92 0.62 3.96 0.67 3.91 0.64 4.02 0.66
*Safety feedback 3.38 0.79 3.54 0.74 3.18 0.84 3.53 0.76
*Safety reporting 3.89 0.56 4.05 0.56 3.81 0.63 3.94 0.67
*Safety promotion & comm. 3.77 0.52 4.02 0.54 3.64 0.61 3.88 0.60

Note: * ¼ significant difference in mean score between the groups. N ¼ 1198.

(p < 0.05) post hoc tests revealed cabin crew had significantly
higher agreement, on average, than the three other occupational
groups. There was no significant difference in responses between
pilots and engineers, but there was a significant difference between
ground operations and engineers, with the ground operations
group responding more favorably.
For Safety Promotion & Communication, univariate tests revealed
there were significant differences in the mean scores between the
occupational groups (F(3,1196) ¼ 24.74, p < 0.000, partial s2 ¼ 0.06);
SNK (p < 0.05) post hoc tests revealed engineers reported signifi-
cantly lower scores than the three other occupational groups. Pilots
reported significantly lower scores than ground operations and
cabin crew, and ground operations reported significantly lower
scores than cabin crew. Therefore, regarding Safety Promotion &
Communication, the order of ranking of the four occupational groups
from more favorable responses to less favorable responses was cabin
crew, ground operations, pilots, and then engineers.
their own group was better than that of other groups, while staff of
the two other groups believed otherwise. See Table 8 for mean
responses of safety attitude perceptions.
Results from the post hoc test further revealed that in terms of
safety perceptions of one's own occupational group, responses of
the pilots' group and engineers' group were significantly higher
than those of two other groups, and responses of the cabin crew
group was significantly lower than those of the three other occu-
pational groups. Therefore the order of ranking of the occupational
groups in terms of the perception of safety attitude of one's own
department from the highest to the lowest was pilots and engi-
neers, ground ops, and then cabin crew.
In terms of participants' perceptions of safety attitudes of other
occupational groups, post hoc tests indicated that all four occupa-
tional groups were significantly different from each other. The or-
der of ranking of perceptions from the highest to the lowest was
ground ops, cabin crew, engineers, and then pilots.

3.4. Reporting preference 3.6. The effect of employment history

Survey item 31 was created to measure the preference of staff as
to whether they reported safety occurrences to their direct line
manager/supervisor or to the safety department. Responses to this
item indicated that pilots and cabin crew were more likely to report
to the safety department, while engineers and ground operations
preferred to report a safety occurrence to their direct line managers
or supervisors.
Further, the likelihood for ground operations to report a safety
occurrence to their managers was significantly higher than all three
other occupational groups, and such difference in reporting pref-
erence was also significant for engineers when compared to either
pilots or cabin crew. However, there was no significant difference in
terms of reporting preference between the pilot group and the
cabin crew group. See Table 7 for count of different responses to
item 31 across occupational groups, and see Fig. 2 for percentages
of different responses within each occupational group to survey
item 31.
3.5. Comparison of mutual perceptions
Two survey items; 32 and 33, were created to test the difference
between participants' perceptions of the safety attitude of their
own occupational group and their perceptions of other occupa-
tional groups. Mean responses to these two items indicate that both
the pilot and engineer groups believed that the safety attitude of
In this study, the effect of employment history on perceptions of
safety themes and reporting preference was tested by comparing
staff who had worked in the company for over five years with those
who had worked in the company for five years or less. See Table 9
for results of the comparison, grouped by occupational groups.
As shown in Table 9, the effect of employment history had a
significant influence on most safety themes across all occupational
groups. In particular, there were significant differences between less
experienced and more experienced engineers in relation to all four
safety themes as well as reporting preferences. Across all the
occupational groups, less experienced staff consistently demon-
strated a more positive perception over survey items than their
more experienced counterparts. For all except the pilot group, the
likelihood of reporting a safety occurrence to their direct managers/
supervisors rather than the safety department was also significantly
higher for less experienced staff, compared with more experienced
staff. Such findings are consistent with the effect of seniority on
safety climate found by Gao et al. (2013) with the pilot sample.
3.7. Limitations
While the authors strived to enhance the validity of the survey
instrument and the generalizability of the results, it is worth noting
that the statistical analysis indicated above might be weakened
slightly due to the inequality among sample sizes of different

Table 7
Count of responses to safety reporting preferences.

Strongly agree (5) Agree (4) Neither agree Disagree (2) Strongly disagree (1) Mean
nor disagree (3)

Pilots 7 58 79 78 11 2.88
Cabin crew 27 83 136 159 39 2.77
Engineers 10 67 77 38 5 3.20
Ground ops 53 112 111 40 6 3.52
 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 47 (2015) 162e171 167

Fig. 2. Percentage of responses to reporting preference grouped by occupations.

Table 8
Mean responses of safety attitude perceptions.

Self perceptions S.D. Perception of other S.D.

occupational groups

Pilots 4.15 0.72 3.27 1.02

Cabin crew 3.48 0.94 3.61 0.91
Engineers 4.04 0.68 3.44 0.95
Ground ops 3.66 1.02 3.75 0.91

occupations. However, this is difficult to avoid in a practical
investigation such as this, as researchers have no control over
respondent participation. Also, findings of this study, including the
differences among occupational groups and the effect of employ-
ment history on safety perceptions, are specific to the subject
airline only, and should not be generalized to other aviation orga-
nizations without further testing.
4. Conclusions
With an expanded scope of study, findings of this project sug-
gested that the overall safety climate of the subject airline was
robust across all four different occupational groups at the time of
the survey. Responses to survey items indicated that participants
in general recognized the commitment of senior management
towards safety, they were willing to report safety occurrences us-
ing appropriate safety reporting system to the company, and they
had access to the latest safety-related information due to the
effective safety promotion and communication of the company.
While three other safety themes received largely positive re-
sponses from survey participants, the safety theme Safety Feedback
received relatively lower agreement. A close look at survey re-
sponses identified that staff from all four different occupational
groups were still not quite satisfied with the feedback they received

Table 9
The effect of seniority on safety themes grouped by occupational groups.

Over five years employed Five or less years employed

(n1) (n2)

Mean S.D. Mean S.D.

Pilots (n1 ¼ 111; n2 ¼ 122) *Safety philosophy 3.80 0.65 4.03 0.56
*Safety feedback 3.21 0.82 3.54 0.72
*Safety reporting 3.79 0.62 3.98 0.47
Safety promotion & comm. 3.71 0.55 3.83 0.49
Reporting preference 2.82 0.96 2.93 0.92
Cabin crew (n1 ¼ 146; n2 ¼ 298) *Safety philosophy 3.84 0.67 4.03 0.64
*Safety feedback 3.40 0.75 3.62 0.72
Safety reporting 4.00 0.57 4.07 0.56
*Safety promotion & comm. 3.92 0.55 4.07 0.53
*Reporting preference 2.48 0.87 2.92 1.09
Engineers (n1 ¼ 102; n2 ¼ 95) *Safety philosophy 3.80 0.60 4.05 0.64
*Safety feedback 2.95 0.82 3.44 0.79
*Safety reporting 3.66 0.63 3.98 0.60
*Safety promotion & comm. 3.52 0.59 3.77 0.60
*Reporting preference 3.03 0.86 3.38 0.90
Ground ops (n1 ¼ 102; n2 ¼ 220) Safety philosophy 3.94 0.60 4.05 0.73
*Safety feedback 3.40 0.68 3.59 0.79
Safety reporting 3.87 0.58 3.97 0.70
*Safety promotion & comm. 3.73 0.56 3.96 0.60
*Reporting preference 3.34 0.94 3.60 0.98

Note: * Significant difference in mean score between the groups.

168 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 47 (2015) 162e171
after filing a safety report. Such dissatisfaction was especially
prominent among engineers. Further qualitative analysis of com-
ments provided by survey participants found that although staff
received automatic acknowledgment after lodging a safety occur-
rence through the safety reporting system, a follow-up with more
customized responses specific to the individual report was ex-
pected by many participants. However, the safety department still
had not met such expectation due to inadequate resources within
the department.
Besides the overall safety climate of the company, the survey
also identified the possible existence of safety sub-climates within
each occupational group. Such sub-climates could be testified by
the differences among occupational groups in terms of safety
themes, safety reporting preferences as well as safety perceptions.
The emergence of safety sub-climates of different occupational
groups could be attributed to distinctive natures of various occu-
pations, differing management and policies of different groups.
Therefore a comprehensive understanding of the safety climate of a
large organization, such as the company being studied in this
project, requires an investigation of sub-climates of various de-
partments of the organization, in addition to an understanding of
the overall climate.
A previous study on safety climate of pilots found that safety
climate is negatively correlated to rank as well as employment
history of pilots (Gao et al., 2013): Senior pilots were generally less
positive in terms of their perceptions of safety related items when
compared with junior pilots. Such effect of employment history and
seniority has been once again confirmed in this study. It was
consistently demonstrated among all four occupational groups that
staff with longer employment histories held less positive percep-
tions about safety climate of the subject airline. It was also a
consistent finding among all groups that more experienced staff
preferred to report safety occurrences to the safety department
instead of to their direct managers or supervisors. The company
should address the negative effect of employment history on the
perceptions of safety among its more senior employees so that the
safety performance of the company can benefit from the rich
experience of this particular cohort.
While most studies about safety climate of aviation organiza-
tions focus on a single department, especially flight crew, this study
analyzed and compared safety perceptions of staff from four
different occupational groups, which should enable commercial
airlines to get an holistic view of the safety climate of the entire
company. Variation of safety perceptions among different occupa-
tional groups should warrant the attention of the company as many
occupational areas contribute to the operational safety in the
aviation industry.
This study is a cross-sectional analysis of safety climate of a
commercial airline. Future studies could consider conducting a
longitudinal study to analyze the evolution of safety climate over a
number of years, using a validated survey instrument. The result of
such a longitudinal analysis could then be used to assess the
effectiveness of safety policies and practices introduced by the
company over that period, thus improving the overall safety per-
formance of the company.
Appendix A. Safety climate survey instrument (Parts 2 & 3)
Part 2. General safety part
Item 1. My company regards safety as high priority.
Item 2. Management of my company has a very clear commit-
ment to safety.
Item 3. My company encourages safety issues, hazards and oc-
currences to be reported.
Item 4. My company does not cut corners when safety is
concerned.
Item 5. Safety has higher priority than getting the job done in
my company.
Item 6. My company is willing to invest resources to improve the
overall safety level.
Item 7. Management views safety regulation violations very
seriously even when they do not result in any apparent damage.
Item 8. Everyone in my company regards safety as high priority.
Item 9. My company values safety over on time performance
(OTP).
Item 10. If I make suggestions to improve safety in the company,
I believe they will be considered.
Item 11. I am satisfied with the way my company handles safety
reports.
Item 12. I am confident that if I report a safety issue, hazard or
occurrence, it will be processed in a timely manner.
Item 13. I believe my company learns and makes appropriate
changes as a result of following up safety occurrences.
Item 14. I receive feedback from the company as a result of safety
issues raised by me.
Item 15. I receive feedback from the company as a result of safety
issues raised by other employees.
Item 16. Training on safety topics as developed by the company
is effective.
Item 17. I have sufficient access to safety-related information.
Item 18. I am aware of company developed safety-related
publications.
Item 19. The company readily communicates changes to the
safety systems that affect me.
Item 20. The company adequately explains the rationale behind
any changes to safety policies.
Item 21. The company provides additional safety awareness
training when the operating environment changes.
Item 22. My department has current safe work procedures
documented for tasks that carry safety risks.
Item 23. I know how to use the safety reporting system to report
any safety issues, hazards or occurrences.
Item 24. I am comfortable approaching the Safety Systems team
to discuss a safety matter.
Item 25. I am willing to report any safety issue, hazard or
occurrence without fear of consequence, even if I contributed to
the cause.
Item 26. I am willing to report any safety issue, hazard or
occurrence resulting from the actions of a fellow crew member.
Item 27. In my company, everyone is given sufficient opportu-
nities to make suggestions regarding safety issues.
Item 28. My company encourages employees to identify and to
report safety issues, hazards or occurrences.
Item 29. My company has established a “No Blame” culture in
terms of using the safety reporting system.
Item 30. I am aware of the company's recent changes to safety
reporting forms.
Reporting preference:
Item 31. I prefer to report a safety occurrence to my manager/
supervisor rather than the safety department.
Item 32. I am satisfied with the safety attitude of my
department.
Item 33. I am satisfied with the safety attitude of employees
working at other departments.
Any further general comments on safety related issues? (Com-
ments box)
 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 47 (2015) 162e171 169

Part 3. Most Recent Safety Occurrence:

Appendix B. Factor analysis

Table 10
Pattern matrix

Factor

1 2 3 4

SP5_Safety has higher priority than getting the job done in my company. 0.876 0.020 0.043 0.110
SP1_My company regards safety as high priority 0.868 0.005 0.112 0.050
SP2_Management of my company has a very clear commitment to safety 0.866 0.025 0.106 0.075
SP4_My company does not cut corners when safety is concerned 0.801 0.006 0.044 0.027
SP9_My company values safety over on time performance (OTP). 0.749 0.037 0.088 0.106
SP8_Everyone in my company regards safety as high priority. 0.535 0.031 0.167 0.034
SP6_My company is willing to invest resources to improve the overall safety level. 0.528 0.028 0.173 0.185
SP3_My company encourages safety issues, hazards and occurrences to be reported. 0.522 0.124 0.049 0.202
SP7_Management views safety regulation violations very seriously even when they do not result in any apparent damage 0.470 0.068 0.070 0.123
SR3_I am willing to report any safety issue, hazard or occurrence without fear of consequence, even if I contributed to the cause 0.000 0.969 0.010 0.115
SR4_I am willing to report any safety issue, hazard or occurrence resulting from the actions of a fellow crew member 0.009 0.785 0.075 0.033
SR2_I am comfortable approaching the Safety Systems team to discuss a safety matter 0.009 0.500 0.180 0.133
SR7_My company has established a “No Blame” culture in terms of using the safety reporting system. 0.106 0.383 0.226 0.106
SR6_My company encourages employees to identify and to report safety issues, hazards or occurrences. 0.223 0.349 0.012 0.291
SR5_In my company, everyone is given sufficient opportunities to make suggestions regarding safety issues. 0.103 0.347 0.221 0.209
SF5_I receive feedback from the company as a result of safety issues raised by me. 0.024 0.019 ¡0.864 0.077
SF6_I receive feedback from the company as a result of safety issues raised by other employees. 0.033 0.021 ¡0.673 0.130
SF3_I am confident that if I report a safety issue, hazard or occurrence, it will be processed in a timely manner. 0.111 0.056 ¡0.634 0.116
(continued on next page)
170 Y. Gao et al. / Journal of Air Transport Management 47 (2015) 162e171

Table 10 (continued )

Factor

1 2 3 4

SF2_I am satisfied with the way my company handles safety reports. 0.204 0.027 ¡0.629 0.073
SF4_I believe my company learns and makes appropriate changes as a result of following up safety occurrences 0.296 0.110 ¡0.405 0.150
SPC4_The company readily communicates changes to the safety systems that affect me. 0.029 0.036 0.078 ¡0.819
SPC3_I am aware of company developed safety-related publications. 0.009 0.096 0.080 ¡0.755
SPC2_I have sufficient access to safety-related information. 0.017 0.058 0.067 ¡0.698
SPC1_Training on safety topics as developed by the company is effective 0.175 0.013 0.193 ¡0.479
SPC7_My department has current safe work procedures documented for tasks that carry safety risks. 0.225 0.030 0.116 ¡0.433

Table 11
Structure matrix

Factor

1 2 3 4

SP5_Safety has higher priority than getting the job done in my company. 0.844 0.431 0.514 0.469
SP4_My company does not cut corners when safety is concerned 0.842 0.442 0.535 0.546
SP2_Management of my company has a very clear commitment to safety 0.836 .416 0.441 0.540
SP1_My company regards safety as high priority 0.831 0.421 0.432 0.525
SP9_My company values safety over on time performance (OTP). 0.754 0.404 0.492 0.428
SP6_My company is willing to invest resources to improve the overall safety level. 0.731 0.422 0.577 0.592
SP3_My company encourages safety issues, hazards and occurrences to be reported. 0.682 0.483 0.430 0.568
SP8_Everyone in my company regards safety as high priority. 0.630 0.363 0.481 0.408
SP7_Management views safety regulation violations very seriously even when they do not result in any apparent damage 0.623 0.410 0.449 0.492
SR3_I am willing to report any safety issue, hazard or occurrence without fear of consequence, even if I contributed to the cause 0.422 0.901 0.357 0.414
SR4_I am willing to report any safety issue, hazard or occurrence resulting from the actions of a fellow crew member 0.372 0.765 0.419
SR2_I am comfortable approaching the Safety Systems team to discuss a safety matter 0.439 0.649 0.470 0.503
SR6_My company encourages employees to identify and to report safety issues, hazards or occurrences. 0.592 0.631 0.462 0.630
SR5_In my company, everyone is given sufficient opportunities to make suggestions regarding safety issues. 0.544 0.614 0.553 0.587
SR7_My company has established a “No Blame” culture in terms of using the safety reporting system. 0.505 0.597 0.519 0.509
SF5_I receive feedback from the company as a result of safety issues raised by me. 0.454 0.348 0.816 0.398
SF2_I am satisfied with the way my company handles safety reports. 0.639 0.452 0.803 0.564
SF3_I am confident that if I report a safety issue, hazard or occurrence, it will be processed in a timely manner. 0.590 0.459 0.790 0.568
SF6_I receive feedback from the company as a result of safety issues raised by other employees. 0.461 0.375 0.735 0.495
SF4_I believe my company learns and makes appropriate changes as a result of following up safety occurrences 0.687 0.525 0.713 0.619
SPC4_The company readily communicates changes to the safety systems that affect me. 0.507 0.435 0.499 0.824
SPC2_I have sufficient access to safety-related information. 0.521 0.482 0.490 0.778
SPC3_I am aware of company developed safety-related publications. 0.479 0.482 0.386 0.769
SPC1_Training on safety topics as developed by the company is effective 0.581 0.428 0.557 0.687
SPC7_My department has current safe work procedures documented for tasks that carry safety risks. 0.579 0.437 0.504 0.654

Extraction method: Principal axis factoring.

Rotation method: Oblimin with Kaiser normalization.

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