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

This study aimed to assess the safety climate of a major commercial airline from the Asia-Pacific region using a self-developed online survey instrument. Besides getting an holistic view of the safety culture of the company at the time of the survey, separate analyses were conducted among different occupational groups and within each group to test if occupations and employment experience had any effect on employees' perception of safety climate. The results of the analyses suggested that the overall safety 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 among the different occupational groups was also identified in the analysis, indicating the possible existence of sub-cultures within each group. In addition to providing a “snapshot” of the safety culture of the subject airline, this study has the potential of being used as a safety culture analysis template, with certain customizations, by other airlines/organizations.