European aviation safety has been weakened by a range of factors, including a high-pressure environment and precarious employment practices, that, according to a new study by Ghent University, are systemic problems across both low-budget and traditional airlines.
The UGent research asked 6,900 pilots and cabin crew staff about working practices and culture. It revealed that a majority (68%) of air crew are below mental health and well-being thresholds, while 78% reported feeling “dehumanised.” The research comes not long after a survey of German pilots, over 90% of whom said they had napped on duty, with one VC union chief linking the prevalence of “controlled rest period” to staff shortages and operational pressures in the aviation industry.
The mental health and exhaustion crisis comes at a time when experienced pilots are retiring to be replaced by younger staff who are more likely to accept poor contractual conditions and less likely to blow the whistle against decisions that affect safety.
“Many people are afraid to report and do not (dare to) push back against decisions that feel potentially unsafe,” Yves Jorens, one of the study’s authors, said. In 2014, UGent found that 82% of pilots felt they could adapt instructions for safety reasons. The 2025 study sees that figure plummet to just 50% of pilots, with as many as 30% reporting hesitation over changing safety decisions due to potential career damage.
As well as staff feeling too tired, pressured, and fearful for their jobs, to go against management orders, cabin crew are reporting pressure to achieve onboard sales of items such as perfume or jewellery, rather than focus on their important health and safety role. “The shift toward in-flight sales responsibilities risks diluting the safety-centric nature of cabin crew work, creating role conflict, psychosocial strain, and legal ambiguities,” the study’s authors say.
Scheduling is also a cause for concern. As many as 42% of all respondents to the crew survey said that working and rest time schedules are being pushed to their limits, with flight time limitations that should be considered “the maximum time a person can fly without rest,” being treated “more like a minimum than a target,” Jorens said, adding: if employees report that “the pressure from the airline or their employment situation is too high, we have a big problem. The risk, of course, is that we have to wait until a serious accident occurs before action is taken.”
