Occupational stress and coping resources in air traffic control

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate how air traffic controllers cope with stress and also to determine whether there were statistically significant differences in the coping behaviour of air traffic control staff from different groups. The study was conducted on a sample of Air Traffic Controllers who control civilian aircraft in the South African airspace. The coping resources inventory (CRI) assessment was used to collect data and analysed to determine how controllers cope with stress and whether there are differences in the coping behaviour of air traffic control staff from different groups. The results showed that air traffic controllers use emotional coping resources to cope with stressful work situations and make less use of cognitive coping resources. The results also showed that there were no statistically significant differences in the coping behaviour of air traffic control staff from different groups.