Should Flight Attendants Be Included in CRM Training? A Discussion of a Major Air Carrier's Approach to Total Crew Training

Cockpit resource management (CRM) training has made significant progress throughout the past 10 years. Nearly all domestic and foreign carriers, however, limit CRM training to flight-deck crews. This article presents a description of the America West Airlines approach to total crew training, namely, inclusion of flight attendants in the Aircrew Team Dynamics (ATD) seminar. Program design and implementation are discussed along with course objectives for the 2-day event. Reflections on training pilots and flight attendants together are presented as well as a discussion of what was learned training the trainers. Included is a discussion of the program from an organization development perspective.