The Effects of Different Interventions on Operators' Fatigue on Long-Haul Flights

The increasing range of the aircraft has led to a situation in which the endurance of the aircraft may sometimes exceed that of the crew members. Therefore, some beneficial countermeasures to fatigue are considered on long-haul flights. The thesis describes a between-subject group study on the effects of two different interventions on operators' fatigue on long-haul flights. One control group and two intervention groups with blue light and in-flight napping separately are designed in the experimental research. After the long-haul flights, each crew member is required to rate the subjective fatigue level at that moment by the Karolinska Sleeping Scale (KSS), subsequently, they are asked to complete a psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) to measure their reaction time. The results indicate the statistically significant differences on the level of fatigue in response to the interventions applied in the long-haul flights. Meanwhile, the intervention group of blue light performs better than the napping group in reducing the fatigue level of crew members. In addition, another finding is that there is a significant positive correlation between the KS Scale and PVT with a moderate correlation strength, while, the result is insufficient to support the conclusion that the PVT should replace the KS Scale.