The cabin crew profession requires specific skills and personal qualities, leading to a successful career. These skills help build effective teamwork, ensure flight safety, and passengers’ comfort. Aerviva, a leading company offering personnel recruitment and leasing solutions, explores personal characteristics, necessary to becoming an accomplished flight attendant.
The importance of effective communication
Good communication is one of the most important non-technical skills. Deloitte, a global leader in professional services, including consulting, auditing, and financial advisory, predicts that by 2030, jobs requiring soft skills will make up 63% of all jobs. Mastering communication s kill is essential, it includes all forms of interaction: verbal, nonverbal, body language, listening, tone of voice, and understanding. According to NaviMinds’ Crew Resource Management (CRM) Trainer Manual, “Most people have a tendency to put overwhelming importance on the words that are being said to them, but according to some researchers, words only contain 7% of the message. The remaining 93% is hidden in the body language and the tone we use to emphasise the meaning of our words.”
“Effective communication, alongside other non-technical skills, such as adaptability, critical thinking, decision-making, and conflict management is essential for building any successful team, especially for cabin crew profession. These qualities help the team to perform better, manage problems more efficiently, and build stronger bonds, which can be vital in ensuring flight safety,” notes Jekaterina Shalopanova, Chief Business Officer at Aerviva.
Why a positive customer mindset is essential
The cabin crew position requires a professional posture and attitude toward the passengers, thus team members should know how to talk to passengers politely, be patient, and solve their complaints effectively. It is important to constantly practice attentive listening, professional interaction, and thoughtful problem-solving. Quality customer service and professional behaviour can be evaluated through cabin crew interactions with passengers, including information sharing, disagreement-solving, the ability to admit mistakes or apologise, and defend yourself or others.
Understanding your and others’ emotions
Flight attendants are always interacting with passengers, so it is vital to understand and manage personal emotions, as well as be able to recognise the emotions of those around them. A good cabin crew member should be able to handle personal feelings and maintain a positive outlook, especially in stressful situations. Maintaining positivity is essential, it helps people to be more productive. According to University of Warwick research, happiness made people around 12% more productive in professional environment. Professor Andrew Oswald, from the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, remarked: “Companies like Google have invested more in employee support and employee satisfaction has risen as a result <…> Under scientifically controlled conditions, making workers happier really pays off.”
One should know not only his strengths but also his flaws and should be capable of managing them. A cabin crew career is focused on teamwork, therefore, it is important to understand how emotions can affect all team’s performance, especially when it comes to team leaders and senior cabin crew members. A study titled Supervisor Emotionally Intelligent Behavior and Employee Creativity, conducted by Yale University, showed that personnel with emotionally intelligent managers are more likely to be happier, more creative, and more innovative.
Poor communication can lead to wrong decisions
One of the key aspects of a safe and pleasant flight is crew situational awareness. Unfortunately, sometimes poor communication can lead to difficulties and loss of ability to perceive, understand, and respond to events. Because of inadequate communication, teamwork can be inefficient, conflicts can escalate, and wrong decisions can be made.
The information between cabin crew should be delivered clearly without any space left for assumptions or interpretations, this should be done professionally, avoiding personal judgments and prejudice.
As stated in the article 21st Century Aerospace and the Power of Communication Skills (Dovie M. Brown and Mary N. Kutz, Ed.D, 2003), published in the Journal of Aviation/Aerospace Education & Research, “Contemporary Aviation leaders have repeatedly identified aviation-related communications skills curriculum as critical to the success of future aviation and aerospace leaders <…> those leaders have consistently identified effective communication skills as vital to successful performance in the aviation environment.”
A lack of teamwork may cause disagreements and confusion
In aviation, the responsibility is shared between the team members. This is why being a part of a team is very important, especially for a cabin crew. Collaboration helps create a trustful environment, which can be critical in avoiding unsafe outcomes. The cabin crew should know that successful teamwork includes effective communication and other key skills, such as leadership, understanding responsibilities, delegation, and trust building.
Crew Resource Management (CRM) training for flight attendants is a valuable tool for improving teamwork. According to a publication in the Journal of Safety Research titled The effects of Crew Resource Management (CRM) training on flight attendants’ safety attitudes, several commercial airline accidents, such as those at Dryden in 1989 (Moshansky, 1992) and Kegworth (Air Accidents Investigation Branch, 1990), revealed significant breakdowns in teamwork and communication between flight attendants and pilots. The publication explains: “This led the aviation industry to develop Crew Resource Management (CRM) training designed specifically for flight attendants as well as joint CRM training, with pilots and flight attendants together, as a way of improving teamwork and communication within each group.”
Lack of resilience prevents effective decision-making
Resilience is one of the topics in CRM training, it defines how people react under stressful conditions, how they respond, and how they continuously adapt to changing situations. It helps to find solutions to problem-solving, which is important in the cabin crew profession as unexpected events may occur. Based on information from the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA), “building resilience ensures you can handle challenges effectively while maintaining your well-being”, the association suggests that to strengthen resilience, people should cultivate a positive mindset by focusing on strength and viewing challenges as opportunities to learn and grow.
As the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) notes, “the implementation of a critical incident response programme (CIRP) is a proactive safety activity and has been a standard industry support service for most first responders <…> The CIRP should focus on the specific needs of cabin crew members by supporting a culture of cabin crew resilience and overall well-being.”
How to enhance key personal qualities
Any career is a continuous process of growth, and one should not consider himself unsuccessful simply because he had experienced difficulties while performing his duties. There is always room for improvement, especially speaking about personal qualities. Enhancing communication skills is essential, it has a positive impact on both careers and relationships, helping to find better ways to solve problems. It is important to practice expressing your thoughts more clearly, use constructive discussion, listen more accurately, and give kind feedback, that would help others to improve.
Teamwork skills can be developed by practicing and rehearsing. Self-observation and self-evaluation also help to understand personal choices better and find a way how to respond, take the lead, or delegate tasks more effectively.
“Effectiveness of a team is one of the key components of successful cabin crew performance. One way to strengthen teamwork is adopting a wider range of experiences and skill sets in the team. Different personalities can share their experiences, learn from each other, and contribute unique strengths and knowledge. Therefore, it is important to focus on the cabin crew selection process, ensuring well-executed team performance,” says the Chief Business Officer at Aerviva.
Those seeking a career in aviation as cabin crew can enhance not only their communication and teamwork skills but also strengthen their resilience. In case to be more resilient to unexpected events, it is important to understand that it is not about avoiding situations. It is about improving day by day, becoming a better professional, and a more understanding human being.
