Thai Airline Passengers' Opinion and Awareness on Airline Safety Instruction Card

1 Thai Airline Passengers' Opinion and Awareness on Airline Safety Instruction Card Chantarat Manvichien International College, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Thailand Chantarat.ma@ssru.ac.th Abstract The purpose of this research is to study the opinion and awareness of Thai airline passengers on the effectiveness of airline safety instruction card which can be found in the seat pocket of every passenger seat. This paper was a quantitative research. A total of 400 Thai passengers with flying experience were interviewed via questionnaire. The data was analyzed and synthesized to generate new findings of Thai airline passengers' opinion and awareness generated from the viewing of airline safety instruction card. The findings revealed that most Thai respondents know and are aware of the importance of airline safety instruction card. However, among the safety communication tools on board the airplane, safety instruction card obtain the least attention. Moreover, most Thai passengers reflected that the card need to be developed in terms of graphic design and understandability. Suggestions to improve the effectiveness of safety instruction cards concern the attractiveness and inside quality. The improvement will lead to higher safety awareness, safety action and safety behavior in the end. Despite extremely low commercial airplane accidents these days, an unexpected accident can occur any time. Therefore proactive manner should be implemented without warning. Keywords - Thai Airline Passenger, safety awareness, safety instruction card. 1. Introduction Aviation community basically concerns with the standard of safety. There have been continuing organized effort and initiatives to reduce air accidents or injuries by all stakeholders concerned. Preventing accidents involves many stakeholders, for example, International and National Regulators, Airline Associations, Aircraft Manufacturers, Airport Operators, Air Operators, etc. As a result of consistent safety promotion, the air accidents rates annually continue to decrease compared to previous years. According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) safety report in 2016, the global accident rate involving scheduled commercial operations decreased by 7%, from 3.0 accidents per million departures in 2014 to 2.8 accidents per million departures in 2015. The 474 fatalities in 2015 represent a substantial decrease from the 904 fatalities in 2014, despite

2 the tragic events of the Germanwings and Metrojet accidents which caused significant loss of life. The number of fatal accidents decreased in 2015 to just 6, the lowest in the past five years [1]. Regarding Air Operators, each and every airline companies are oriented to provide high safety procedures and standards, part of that includes promotion of safety awareness and safety behavior to passengers. On board the airplane, there are many safety communication tools executed by airline companies such as safety briefing announcement, safety demonstration video or live safety demonstration, signage, warning, safety instruction card, etc. However, all of these safety communication tools share same objectives but bear different features and visual presentations. Having said that, safety Instruction card is the only safety communication tool that are available and tangible to passengers at all times during a flight. This is because it is a safety requirement to place one in every seat pocket in front of every passenger seat, a normal practice by commercial air operators. Therefore, in-flight safety awareness and passenger opinion on safety instruction card review is the issue that is questioned and should be paid attention to closely. The stakeholders have to educate and provide relevant useful knowledge about the actual benefits of safety instruction card review in order to stimulate safety awareness and appropriate behavior in passenger self protection [2]. In Terms of national economics, safety performance can also boost the level of airlines profit and national tourism [3]. 1.2 Methodology The study of opinion and awareness of Thai airline passengers on airline safety instruction card was a quantitative research. This research paper utilized the sampling method of Taro Yamane (1967) to obtain 400 samples [4]. The data was collected in Bangkok by convenient sampling. The questionnaire utilized in the study consisted of checklist, Likert scales and multiple choices. The first part of questionnaire included the questions of demographic concerning gender, age, education, occupation, frequency of traveling, preferred airlines and reasons for choosing airlines. The second part of questionnaire included the respondents' air accident experience. The third part concerned of in-flight communication tools. The fourth part was about the improvement needed for in-flight communication tools. 1.3 Findings The demographic findings of this paper which aimed to investigate the opinion and awareness of safety instruction card by Thai airline passengers reported that female respondents were 63 percent while male were 37 percent. The majority of the respondents were between 31-40 years of age. The majority of respondents earned a bachelor degree as the highest level of education. 22 percent are government employee whereas 19 percent were working for a private company. Almost half of them traveled at least once a year and chose to fly with Thai Airways. The reasons for choosing to fly with airlines were the attentive caring, reasonable price and convenient seat booking. (see Table I below)

3 TABLE I PROFILE OF THE RESPONDENTS Items (N=400) % Gender 1. Male 36.8 2. Female 63.2 Age 1. under 20 years old 5.5 2. 20-30 years old 23.2 3. 31-40 years old 29.5 4. 41-50 years old 20.8 5. 51 years old and over 21.0 Education 1. Below high school 2. High school 3. Two years college 4. Bachelor degree or higher Occupation 1. Government officer 2. Entrepreneur 3. Company Employee 4. Student 5. Others Frequency of traveling 1. yearly 2. Twice a year 3. Every quarter 4. Every month 5. Every week 6. Others Preferred airline 1.Thai Airways 2. Air Asia 3. Nok Air 4. Bangkok Airways 4.2 11.2 10.5 74.0 22.5 25.0 19.5 12.2 20.8 49.5 21.5 12.0 3.0 0.5 13.5 55.5 31.0 11.8 6.8

4 5. Japan Airlines Reasons for choosing airlines 1. Attentive caring from cabin crew 2. Reasonable price 3. Convenient seat booking 4. In-flight food 5. Safety standard enforcement 6.8 48.2 38.2 33.5 29.8 26.0 The findings from table 2 (below) revealed that from personal experience, most of the respondents (97.8 percent) never have an on board accident, whereas 2.2 percent or 9 persons came across this experience. The reasons of experiencing air accidents caused by bad weather and air turbulence. TABLE II RESPONDENTS' AIR ACCIDENT EXPERIENCE of Respondents Percentage 1. Never experience an accident 391 97.8 2. Accident experience 9 2.2 400 The findings from table 3 (below) revealed that majority of respondents preferred listening to the cabin crew safety announcement on board as the first (52.0 percent), whereas watching safety demonstration video came second (36.5 percent) and safety instruction card was the last (11.5 percent). The reasons given for choosing cabin crew safety announcement as the first choice were better understanding, even though sometimes there are language barrier but passengers are able to ask for more understanding. As for the safety demonstration video, respondents expressed that it was convenient to watch. Moreover, the narration was clear and easy to understand. For safety instruction card, the good points are that the review enhanced passenger understanding and the safety procedure can be memorized easily.

5 TABLE III PREFERENCE OF IN-FLIGHT COMMUNICATION TOOLS First Second Third No 1. Cabin Crew Safety Announcement 208 (52.0) 157 (39.2) 30 (7.5) 5 (1.2) 2. Safety Demonstration Video 146 (36.5) 158 (39.5) 84 (21.0) 12 (3.0) 3. Safety Instruction Card 46 (11.5) 69 (17.2) 269 (67.2) 16 (4.0) The findings from table 4 (below) regarding the improvement needed for in-flight communication tools, Thai passenger's first choice was the safety instruction card (53.0 percent). Whereas the cabin crew safety announcement came second (30.5 percent) and the safety demonstration video which is normally featured before every airplane take off was the last option (16.5 percent). The respondents mentioned that safety instruction card was unattractive to read, in old condition, needed to be more colorful with easy understandable graphic design and illustrations. Also the language on the safety instruction card was a barrier to those who were unable to read the main language. Moreover, the alphabet size was too small to read. Whereas respondents viewed that cabin crew safety announcement sometimes was too low in volume, unclear, fast speaking and difficult to understand. At the same time, safety demonstration video are not interesting to watch. The explanation in the video was done too quick. Some airline videos were too long while some airlines showed no video at all. TABLE IV IMPROVEMENT NEEDED FOR IN-FLIGHT COMMUNICATION TOOLS of Respondents Percentage 1. Cabin Crew Safety announcement 122 30.5 2. Safety Demonstration VDO 3. Safety Instruction Card 66 212 16.5 53.0

6 In conclusion, the study revealed as followed; 1. The majority of the Thai respondents were woman, age between 31-40 and graduated with bachelor degree. They traveled on airplane on a yearly basis and preferred to fly with Thai Airways because of crew attentive caring. 2. Most of them never had an in-flight incident or accidents. Anyway a few of them had an experience before. 3. The most of in-flight communication tools on board the airplane were cabin crew safety announcement, safety demonstration video and safety instruction card respectively. 4. The in-flight communication tool that respondents thought it needed the most improvement was the safety instruction card. 1.4 Suggestions In summary, the study reflected that Thai airline passengers were aware of the importance of safety communication tools in-flight. They listened, watched and viewed all the available safety tools as appropriate. They paid most attention to cabin crew safety announcement, while they thought that safety instruction card had the least attraction and need improvement. Therefore, what airline company should do is to develop the quality of all safety communication tools on board the airplane, especially the safety instruction card which received the least attention. They should have improvements on color, graphic design, logical explanation with universal language. Moreover, the condition of safety card need to be checked before every departure in order to make sure of the well presentation to passengers. 1.5 Future studies To know more about the effectiveness of airline safety instruction card, there should be a study on specific airline safety instruction card in order to get the exact and justified comments for airlines. Moreover, airline companies should take a serious study on the passenger feedback and enhance the quality of safety communication tools as required. Everyone concerns should be aware that passenger safety cannot be compromised and serious action should be taken in proactive approach. 1.6 Acknowledgement The Author would like to thank the Research and Development Institute, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University, Bangkok, Thailand for financial support. REFERENCES [1] International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) (2016). 2016 Safety Report. Retrieved on December 5, 2016, from http://www.icao.int/safety/pages/safety-report.aspx [2] Manvichien, C. (2015). Vitality of Safety Factors: A Case Study of Thai Airways Passengers. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences 197 (2015) 2103 2109. International College, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. [3] Wongleedee, K. (2014). International Tourists motivation to revisit Bangkok, Thailand. Proceeding from WASET Conference, Paris, 2014. International College, Suan Sunandha Rajabhat University. [4] Yamane, T. (1967). Statistics: An Introductory Analysis. (2 nd ed). New York: Harper and Row