Journal of Engineering, Project, and Production Management, 2026, 16(5), 2026-0073
Optimizing Cabin Emergency Response Processes in Civil Aviation: A Project and Operations Management Approach to Crew Preparedness and Service Safety
Instructor, Department of Air Transportation Management, Guangzhou Civil Aviation College, Guangzhou, 510403, China, E-mail: drah5362@outlook.com
Project Management
Received May 29, 2026; revised June 27, 2026; accepted July 21, 2026
Available online July 28, 2026
Abstract: Cabin emergency response sits at an awkward crossroads in civil aviation: it is safety-critical, time-pressure, and yet runs in parallel with a continuous stream of service tasks that compete for the same crew attention. Most existing studies treat cabin training and cabin service as separate concerns, leaving carriers without a unified approach to planning, measuring, and improving the end-to-end response process. This paper develops a project and operations management approach for cabin emergency response: the Cabin Emergency Response Optimization for Crew Adaptive Service Safety (CERO‑CASS) framework. It knits together work‑breakdown decomposition, bow‑tie risk analysis, a competency‑task Knowledge‑Skills‑Attitudes (KSA) matrix, DEMATEL prominence–causality screening, and an M/M/1 serial queueing model of the response process. The five layers feed an integrated Cabin Emergency Response Preparedness Index (CERPI) that summarizes operational readiness on a single 0–1 scale and is sensitive to both training inputs and process design. The framework is validated through a mixed-methods study covering three carriers, 312 cabin crew members, 184 air safety reports, and 10,000 Monte Carlo simulation runs. Results show that the optimized configuration reduces mean total response time from 95.4s to 64.4s (a 32.4% reduction), lifts the 95-percentile response time from 159s to 99s, and raises the carrier-level CERPI from a baseline of 0.49 to 0.79 over six four-month training cycles. Sensitivity analysis identifies recurrent drill frequency, crew training depth, and SOP clarity as the three highest-leverage causal drivers. The framework provides airline operations managers with a coherent, evidence-based instrument to close the gap between cabin service productivity and emergency response readiness without sacrificing either.
Keywords: Cabin emergency response; civil aviation service; crew preparedness; operations management; service safety.
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Citation: Gan, L. (2026). Optimizing Cabin Emergency Response Processes in Civil Aviation: A Project and Operations Management Approach to Crew Preparedness and Service Safety. Journal of Engineering, Project, and Production Management, 16(5), 2026-0073.
