Applying Functional Analysis to Study the Airline Pilot’s Perspective on Human- Human Interactions during Flight Operation

Abstract

The objective of the study is to understand the cooperation building process within Human-Human Interaction (HHI) during Collaborative Decision Making (CDM) in a distributed, multipleobjective decision making environment. It is based upon functional HHI analysis within typical CDM flight operation situations where the flight operation includes the inbound, turn-round, and outbound phases of the flight. A survey was undertaken which sought to identify aircraft pilots’ perspective on cooperation with other operators during various flight situations. In this study, different situations are compared and characterized by: (1) a synchronous interaction mode, where all participating operators interact with each other at the same time, and (2) an asynchronous interaction mode, where the participating operators interact with each other at different times. Task and decision-making for all situations is distributed between operators. The aircraft pilot’s perspective and their information requirements during these flight situations are used to identify critical information processing during CDM.