Examining Employees' Psychological Empowerment Levels in Terms of Demographic and Occupational Characteristics: The Case of Antalya Airport

The aim of this study is to determine the psychological empowerment levels of employees at Antalya Airport and to examine whether these levels differ significantly according to demographic and occupational characteristics. Data were collected from 226 employees working for three different ground handling organizations operating at Antalya Airport. The 12-item Psychological Empowerment Scale, developed by Spreitzer (1995) and adapted into Turkish by Sürgevil et al. (2013), was used for data collection. Reliability analysis, exploratory factor analysis, independent-samples t-test, and one-way analysis of variance were employed to analyze the data. When the homogeneity of variance assumption was not met, Welch’s test and the Games-Howell multiple comparison test were applied. The findings revealed that employees’ psychological empowerment levels differed significantly according to age, professional experience, and position, whereas no significant differences were found in terms of gender, marital status, educational level, or department. In particular, employees aged 18–25 and those with five years or less of professional experience exhibited lower levels of psychological empowerment, while employees in managerial/supervisory positions reported higher levels of psychological empowerment than those in officer/worker positions. The findings highlight the importance of organizational practices aimed at supporting psychological empowerment, particularly among employees in the early stages of their careers and those in non-managerial positions. Keywords: Psychological Empowerment, Civil Aviation, Airport Employees, Ground Handling.