ver ten years ago I was taught how to be a crisis negotiator. The image most people have of negotiators is of them dealing with terrorists or criminals trapped in a bank. However, the vast majority of people who encounter one, in London at least, are those who wish to commit suicide. The skills needed to deal with someone in such a crisis, one in which they wish to find a permanent solution to what is probably a temporary problem, are key to saving lives. Whilst it may seem extreme to argue that those skills are relevant to dealing with a non-compliant passenger, I hope to demonstrate that they are. In many ways the experiences I have had negotiating with terrorists and criminals were easier conversations and negotiations. I am sure that some airline staff would agree that dealing with irate or drunk passengers can be some of the most stressful situations they have been in. The following skills will help: planning and preparation, context manipulation, first impressions, listening skills and influence and persuasion skills.


O Planning and Preparation


Spending some time considering the types of situations aircrew may find themselves in, I am sure results in a long list of ‘types’ of people and situations. These may include the slightly nervous distracted passenger, the impatient business traveller and the angry aggressive drunk wanting to fight you or fellow passengers in order to be served more alcohol. The list may extend to a person suffering mental health issues, or a ‘terrorist’ attacking you in order to take control of the aircraft. If we spend a few moments thinking about what may motivate each person to behave in the way they do, we may arrive at a short list of motivations, although a long list of events that may have resulted in the action they are now taking. In short, we are motivated for reasons of affiliation, status and control. However, how we behave may be the result of many events. During one suicide intervention, when asking the person why he was considering suicide, he stated, “I stubbed my toe this morning and lost my car keys”. During the next five hours he disclosed the loss of a child, breakdown of a marriage and financial ruin – in short the keys and toe were the final straw. In terms of terrorism, many debate whether ‘terrorists’ are mad or bad – yet most academics would argue that terrorism is, in the main, undertaken by rational people, albeit undertaking extraordinary behaviour. The first area of preparation is to spend time thinking through why people behave in a non-compliant way.


The second is to consider what assumptions February 2013 Aviationsecurityinternational


The widely published image of a passenger bound and gagged with duct tape on board an Icelandair flight, en route from Reykjavik to New York, this January highlighted the challenges posed by unruly passengers


you are making about why a person may be non-compliant or antagonistic. The only way to find out, and perhaps diffuse the situation, is to ask. However, remember you cannot force people to explain; you have to think about ways to try to get them to talk.


“...when asking the person why he was considering suicide, he stated, “I stubbed my toe this morning and lost my car keys”...”


Context Manipulation As you are standing at the door welcoming passengers, you begin to see the patterns of behaviour; the nervous, the late, the drunk, the unusual. What do they see? A smile; a direction given; a uniform; or perhaps a request to view a ticket or passport? Thinking about how you want to appear, the words you use and the effect on others has been researched, resulting in some striking findings. One area examined was the effect of words on behaviour. One experiment asked people to correct jumbled words into sentences; psychologists were able to show that just by having people read words within the jumbled sentences relating to the elderly would cause them to act slower, and words related to patience resulted in their being more patient . As an example of context manipulation, one can see an advantage, by thinking about the words you use and tone of voice (another excellent piece of research showed that tone of voice had an impact on whether you were sued as a doctor; Barry White’s tone of voice is where to aim!). We


will look at authority as a compliance strategy later, but emphasising the fact that you are in charge through your uniform can, and does, have an impact on the vast majority of passengers. If we think about trust, just the fact the person with four rings round their sleeve and that they turn left and go into the cockpit makes them the Captain. I often wonder whether a passenger has ever checked a licence or confirmed a pilot is competent; most passengers trust the ‘Captain’ based on their appearance and the context to take them to 36,000 feet and to certain death if all goes wrong.


First Impressions We can only make one first impression, yet how many of us actually think about the impression we want to make. Studies have shown that those who make a poor first impression are less likely to get a job and have fewer friends. We all know the feeling of meeting someone for the first time, not warming to them, and having to spend, maybe, months with them before you realise that they are not that bad really. The problem with first impressions is that they are linked to the ‘Horns and Halo’ principle. If we meet someone for the first time and like him or her, we give them a halo. Subsequently if something goes wrong then it isn’t their fault because they are deemed as great. Alternatively, should a person be deemed to have horns, if a mistake is made it is obviously their doing. In a simple sense we have bias, which in the context of an antagonistic conversation makes us come across as biased – “he would say that wouldn’t he, he has been awful all the trip.” What the passenger sees and hears is that you do not like them, and this can be based on a very small piece of information, a thin slice of behaviour . Thin slicing can help though. As a young police officer, I was taught


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