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But There Still Remains The Option To Opt Out Of This Directive. The ...

The compression of the working week into 12 hour shifts seems popular, but there is as yet insufficient evidence of the effects of such a working pattern on the health and wellbeing outcomes already highlighted (Harrington, 1999). However, there are considerable attractions to this shift system, the greatest of which might be the fact that workers get four ‘days off' per week, and work three days.

The problem might relate to staffing though, and to the nature of the flights. Twelve hour scheduling might suit Aer Arann because of the relatively short flights which constitute its usual outputs. Conversely, these might pose a challenge in terms of length of flights and scheduling of the flights themselves. Setting the times of twelve hour shifts may be difficult due to the need to cover the flight schedules.

Thus there might need to be a rotating pattern of 12 hour shifts, which might do little to alleviate the problems associated with disturbances in circadian rhythm.

Harma et al (2002) found in their study that the risk of severe sleepiness was not consistently related to the time-off period before shifts, which suggests that in relation to scheduling, it is the quality of rest rather than the quantity of time off that may be important. Harma et al's (2002) findings indicate that adjustments for shift timing, length and off-duty time, in addition to actions aiming at extending the main sleep period, would probably decrease severe sleepiness in railway transportation. The transferability of this kind of finding to Aer Arann's workforce would need some consideration, but could be taken into account in terms of staff rotas and schedule planning.

There are, however, definite limitations in the use of scheduling to address the negative effects of shift working. According to Turek (1986), it has been suggested that in order to minimize the time needed to readjust circadian rhythms to a new work schedule the work time of shift workers should be rotated in a delaying rather than an advancing direction. But Turek (1986) suggests that delaying or advancing the work time does not imply that the sleep-wake cycle is also shifted in a similar manner, which reflects some of the findings elsewhere in the literature. It is Turek's (1986) opinion that after a complete rotation between the day, evening, and night shifts the sleep time will be advanced once, delayed once, and not shifted once, regardless of whether the workers are on a delaying or an advancing work rotation schedule, which means that circadian rhythms are likely to be perturbed in a similar manner whether the work schedule is rotated in a delaying or an advancing direction. This presents difficulties for addressing issues of fatigue and other related health factors through scheduling alone.

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