ABSTRACT
The first thing that any aviation organization should do when developing a CRM program is to obtain an accurate representation of the attitudes and feelings of its work force. There should be an efficient way to survey the potential work group to detennine what specific type of training program would work best. The Flight Management Attitudes Questionnaire is an extremely effective tool which has been used by numerous United States and international airlines (FMAQ, 1993). The FMAQ contains 82 questions designed to measure attitudes toward leadership and command, crew interaction and communications, stress, work values, team behaviors, and attitudes towards cockpit automation. In addition to these CRM related issues, the questionnaire also contains items which describe the organizational climate of the organization (Merritt, 1995). An immediate organizational problem emerges; one ll!l!St get a quantitative sample of responses from the surveyed group in order for the survey to be valid and significant. In an airline with a small number of pilots, this shouldn't pose much of a problem. In an airline with several thousand pilots, as is the case in many major air carriers, the challenge is to get a legitimate number of responses that is representative of the survey group, to make the survey valid. It is equally important to help the potential survey group see that it is in their best interest to respond to the survey. Whether this information comes from mass quantity mailings, newsletters, articles, company publications, video releases, or even telephone calls, the bottom line is to reach a majority of the work force for survey effectiveness.
