A Study on Low Cost Carriers’ Conveyance of Cabin Safety Information -Focused on Aircraft Decompression Emergency Situation-

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

There are two types of decompression: slow decompression that involves a very gradual leak or decrease in cabin pressure as a result of a faulty door, window or pressurization system malfunction, and rapid decompression that occurs due to an outside wall damage or an explosion. Any types of decompression can cause crew or passengers to lose consciousness, which may lead to massive aircraft fatalities.
Safety information regarding the measures to be taken by passengers during an event of decompression is included in the pre-takeoff passenger briefing on all air carriers as prescribed in international law and domestic legislation. However, most passengers are not paying attention to this information, thus it is difficult to remember the details when decompression takes place. In the case of full service carriers, passengers are to obtain the safety information through the pre-recorded announcement during decompression, however, as for LCCs, the cabin crew should make an announcement or keep shouting about the safety information.
With a minimum number of cabin crew on board required by the Aviation Act, the cabin crew are likely to be exposed to hypoxia while performing these safety procedures. Also LCCs operate their flights with aircraft leased from other various countries such as India, Germany, etc. Some of the aircraft are equipped with the pre-recorded announcement system by the originators, and the languages recorded are their native languages, resulting in confusion to Korean or other Asian nationality passengers.
In this aspect, this study identifies the LCCs' safety risk that the conveying the cabin safety information to passengers depends solely on the cabin crew. This study also suggests the installing of the pre-recorded announcement system as the most important countermeasure. The results of this study is to contribute to promoting aviation safety by preventing the occurrence of casualties in decompression accidents by proposing a systematic improvement of the cabin safety information conveyance on decompression.

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