Identification of risk factors for air traffic controllers’ unsafe acts based on online reviews

Abstract

Online reviews may influence unsafe acts and are significant in the context of big data. This study acquired online reviews related to air traffic control from social media websites. The word frequency statistics and coding of negative comments were taken to mine risk factors. Combined with the human factors analysis and classification system (HFACS), a conceptual model of the risk factors associated with the unsafe acts of air traffic controllers (ATCers) was constructed. The results indicate that the frequency of risk factors in online reviews, ranked from high to low, is organizational influences, ATCers' adverse states, environmental factors and unsafe supervision. Organizational influences, environmental factors and unsafe supervision indirectly affect the unsafe acts through the ATCers’ adverse states. It is demonstrated that the combination of HFACS and online reviews to identify risk factors enables the identification of problems in the air traffic control industry and demands of ATCers.

KEYWORDS:

• online reviews
• air traffic controllers
• unsafe acts
• risk factors
• human factors analysis and classification system

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Ministry of education of Humanities and Social Science project [18YJA630076].