When Heterogeneity translates into Safety and Success on the Ramp

The cultural issue has come up at several aviation events I have attended over the years. Several speakers have stated that some aviation standards and recommended practices are difficult to enforce in regions where nationals find them repugnant to local culture.

 

Proponents of this theory particularly point out that voluntary incident reporting and just culture is difficult to enforce in Africa where punishment and the “bad apple” theory are entrenched. To buttress their argument, speakers have made reference to ICAO’s USOAP[1] audit statistics where Africa consistently registers low scores partly due to the fact that no independent air accident investigation authorities have been established. Many accidents and incidents end up in offices of state prosecution agencies and courts of law, where the rule of thumb is that punishment must be meted out to “offenders”.

 

Cutting to the chase, humans from birth to adulthood, are programmed, influenced, and shaped by the environment in which they live, to believe that “the way things are done in our community is the right way”.

 

Ashleigh Merritt and Daniel Murano[2] have asserted that working within one’s cultural environment ensures predictability, making daily routines easier and quicker. They attribute this to the fact that humans are more efficient when they know what to expect of others and also know what is expected of them. The social context allows people to manage their daily lives so efficiently by providing many shortcuts based on familiarity. Values – what is important, what is correct – are shaped within the social context and held so highly, that most people are offended when they encounter people with values other than their own. Working in a diverse environment leads to more conflicts, and less cohesion in work teams and is associated with patterns of exclusion and discrimination.

 

The authors further assert that all humans have the ability to adapt to working in a cross-cultural setup due to training and exposure, but such adaptation is only cosmetic. It crumbles under stress and a reversion to native behaviors takes place.

 

The above assertions imply that homogeneous people work well together while the reverse is true for heterogeneous people. Does this apply to the aviation industry?

 

The 21st-century aviation operational setup is highly diverse. In several airlines, the crew do not share common nationality and may not even be citizens of the aircraft’s state of registry. Even where crew share common nationality and are citizens of the state of registry, flights to different regions expose them to different cultures ranging from air traffic controllers, dispatchers, and maintenance personnel.

 

It may be argued that the cockpit has two or three crew members under the control and direction of one air traffic controller at a time, so it is a lot easier to cope with diverse cultures. In addition, licensed personnel undergo standardized training – as required by the Chicago Convention and Annex one (Personnel Licensing) – so it is easy, for say, Indian flight crew communicating with Peruvian air traffic controllers.

 

How about unlicensed ramp crew who have to execute their operations in a choreographed manner, against the clock, in tight spaces and hostile working environments? Could diversity and work pressure in such environments lead to failure, giving credence to Merritt’s and Murano’s assertions?

 

Take an example of the Middle East, where ground handling companies employ multicultural ramp personnel.

 

In 2016, Jon Conway – Senior Vice President for Dubai’s Dnata operations – stated[3];

“We source ramp personnel primarily from overseas, although many expatriate colleagues are recruited locally, our top five nationalities working in airside operations are: Indian, Pakistani, Philippine, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan. Across our UAE business, we have nearly 100 nationalities. We are, by any definition, a multi-cultural organization and it is one reason it is such a pleasure to work here.”

In spite of its multi-cultural set up, Dnata has a good safety plus on-time performance record, which has propelled Dubai International Airport into the top three busiest airports by passenger traffic for 2015, 2016 and 2017[4]. Dnata’s Dubai ground operations are ISAGO[5] registered and it has won the ground handler of the year accolade several times between 2007 and 2017.

 

Dnata’s success story goes to show that;

 

• Heterogeneous environments allow humans to work freely without being bound by social shackles or encumbered by assumptions and expectations;

 

• It is possible to integrate into and work in a multicultural setup successfully, notwithstanding the pressure of handling over 80 million passengers, 2.5 million tons of cargo and 400,000 aircraft annually[6];

 

• Regardless of one’s background and social values, humans from diverse backgrounds can work together successfully in aviation’s structured environment, without compromising safety.

 

• Senior management has to appreciate diversity of the work force and create an environment where workers can be their best selves.

 

• Licensing is not a prerequisite for successful ramp operations although employees must be trained thoroughly to ensure that they work safely and efficiently.

 

Other successful handling companies with multicultural employees are Qatar Aviation Services which employs 8000 multicultural employees[7], KLM Aircraft services which enforces KLM’s diversity policy of employing a workforce that reflects Dutch society in terms of ethnicity[8] and Fraport AG which has a diversity clause in its employee code of conduct[9] in which discrimination based on ethnicity, nationality or social origin is prohibited.

 

Contrary to Merritt and Murano’s assertions in paragraph 4 above, humans have the ability to disengage from their social values, adapt best practices and concentrate on critical assignments where they can excel through team work coupled with individual accountability.

[1] International Civil Aviation Organization’s Universal Safety Oversight Audit Program

[2] Cross Cultural Factors in Aviation Safety (2004)

[3] Mario Pierobon; Growing Inside and Out: Dnata’s Diversifying Culture (2016)

[4] Source: Airports Council International Statistics

[5] IATA Safety Audit for Ground Operations

[6] http://www.dubaiairports.ae/corporate/media-centre/fact-sheets/detail/dubai-airports

[7] http://www.qataraviation.com/page/home

[8] https://www.klm.com/corporate/en/topics/corporate-social-responsibility/workforce.html

[9] https://www.fraport.com/content/fraport/en/misc/binaer/fraport-group/fraport/management/compliance/publications/code-of-conduct-for-employees/jcr:content.file/verhaltenskodex-englisch-online.pdf