Burnout and Isolation among Flight Attendants: a Test of the Job Demands-resources Model

Flight attendants are typically characterized as being engaged in ‘emotional labour,’ which is defined as the effort, planning, and control needed to express organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions. Emotional labour is always stressful and may result in negative job outcomes or health problems. Therefore, drawing on the main propositions of the JD-R model, together with the results of previous research on flight attendants, this study empirically investigates the relationships among job demands, job resources, burnout, colleague isolation, health problems and job performance. A selfadministered flight attendant questionnaire is designed to collect empirical data from individuals working at Taiwanese airlines. The hypotheses model is tested using structural equation modelling (SEM). The results of this study confirm that burnout mediates the relationship between job demands and health problems, and that colleague isolation mediates the relationship between job resources and job performance. The empirical implications of the results are also discussed in detail.