Chartered flights for fly-in fly-out (FIFO) workers in the oil and gas industry can help companies ensure reliability and consistency around work rosters, providing benefits to worker mental health and wellbeing, as well as to productivity.
With reliable rosters, FIFO workers will have a sense of security around on-time and regular flights, while managers will have greater control over schedules and work planning.
More than 250,000 people are employed by the resources industry in Australia, with around 90,000 to 110,000 estimated to work in FIFO roles.
FIFO work involves regular travel to remote job sites, which often does not match up with the flight schedules of traditional commercial airlines – this can result in long waiting periods, missed flights, and the subsequent productivity losses and impacts on the worker’s personal life.
Chartered flights, on the other hand, can be scheduled around shift changes, ensuring smoother transitions between home, transit, and work, and reducing or eliminating ‘dead time’ that could impact worker mental health and productivity.
Moreover, charter airlines are usually equipped to land at small, remote airstrips, providing direct access and flexibility for workers, and substantially improving the efficiency of FIFO operations.
Chartering flights also gives managers passenger list control, decreasing potential health risk exposures due to fewer contacts with different people.
Along with greater comfort, this prioritises worker wellbeing and promotes both productivity and job satisfaction.
FIFO workers may potentially have different mental health and health-related behaviours compared to workers who are not FIFO, which may require different initiatives to manage and mitigate.
A 2018 study published in the Medical Journal of Australia, which surveyed 1,134 FIFO workers, showed more than a quarter of respondents indicated high or very high psychological distress compared with 10.8 per cent of the general population.
Common sources of stress according to the study were missing special events while on site (86.5 per cent) and relationship problems (68 per cent), while more than half of respondents noted financial stress (62.3 per cent), shift rosters (62 per cent) and social isolation (60.2 per cent).
Crucially, 41 per cent worried about stigma attached to mental health problems and 38.5 per cent reported stress due to the unavailability of help.
This stigma as well as masculine norms can play an oversized role in preventing workers from seeking assistance.
These statistics are consistent with findings in a report produced for the Western Australia Mental Health Commission in 2018, which stated that even when associated risk factors such as age and education were considered, there was a greater risk of mental ill health among workers operating under FIFO work arrangements.
A survey of more than 3,000 workers for the report indicated one third of respondents experienced high or very high levels of psychological stress.
Moreover, demographic factors such as gender, age, education and job role among FIFO workers increased the likelihood of both suicide and mental health issues within the group.
All of these factors around FIFO worker mental health can have substantial impacts on a company’s bottom line, with a 2019 cross-sectional study estimating an annual cost of $22 million in lost productivity in every 1,000 workers.
This lost productivity is attributable to several health conditions, including stress, depression, anxiety, sleep problems, alcohol use, and poor nutrition.
Another study from 2016 established that psychological distress was associated with an annual cost of loss of work time of $4.9 million in resources industry workers, with $2.7 million due to absenteeism and $2.3 million due to presenteeism.
Presenteeism can be defined as when workers continue to work while sick, despite having reduced productivity levels or increased chance of negative consequences.
A comprehensive cost-benefit analysis will often reveal that when factoring in the benefits and savings that chartered flights bring to FIFO operations, they are the more cost-effective option in the long run.
Designing flight schedules around shift changes can reduce downtime and worker idle time, while providing comfortable and stress-free travel can contribute to the overall wellbeing of employees.
Furthermore, direct flights to remote sites eliminate the need for additional accommodation at transit points, providing substantial savings.