The influence of social support and mindfulness on job burnout of ground handling employees in the aviation sector

Type of the article: Research ArticleAbstractThis paper aims to examine the influence of social support and mindfulness on job burnout of ground handling employees, using data from 197 employees in Tan Son Nhat International Airport, which is the busiest aviation hub in Vietnam. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was utilized to explore this complex relationship. The study demonstrates that enhanced social support and strengthened mindfulness can substantially mitigate burnout among ground handling employees. The findings indicate that social support significantly reduced job burnout and strongly increased mindfulness, while mindfulness also exerted a substantial negative effect on burnout. An important effect of mindfulness partially mediated the relationship between social support and burnout. These results collectively suggest that social support operates as a critical organizational resource that enhances psychological resilience, while mindfulness serves as an internal coping mechanism that strengthens employees’ capacity to regulate stress and mitigate burnout. The study concludes that both social support and mindfulness play essential roles in reducing job burnout among ground handling employees and may offer effective strategies for reducing burnout in the aviation ground services context.