Application of analytic network process to the interview examination in an air traffic control department

133 3. Application of Analytic Network Process to the Interview Examination in an Air Traffic Control Department *Mustafa Özdemir, Eskisehir Technical University, Turkey, [email protected] Mujgan Sagir, ESOGU - Eskişehir Osmangazi University, Turkey, [email protected] In the aviation sector, air traffic controllers (ATCOs) and pilots are the staffs who have the high responsibilities in flight operations, and they undertake critical tasks where even a small error may cause serious consequences. ATCOs are responsible for ensuring the safe, regular and rapid flow of aircraft traffic in airspace and at airports. They consistently carry out their duties in co-ordination and co-operation with pilots, technical personnel, management and other supervisors. Pilots provide take off, landing, descent and other maneuvers of aircraft in accordance with the instructions received from ATCOs. Someone who is not appropriate for this profession is more likely to make mistakes when they are on duty. At this point, the capabilities of the ATCOs become crucial. The selection of ATCOs and the training quality given after selection should be focused so that skilled and qualified people can do this job. Failure to select a suitable candidate is a major obstacle to training a qualified ATCO, no matter how good the quality of the training is. In the study, firstly, the process of admission of candidates to an air traffic control department was examined. In the current process, students should take a series of examinations including mathematics, aptitude, interview and simulation. These examinations, except the interview, are more convenient for measurable and objective evaluation. However, in the interview stage, candidates are subjected to a more qualitative evaluation by an interview committee. A certain number of the candidates listed according to the interview scores are entitled to proceed to the final stage. To improve the evaluation process, we consider this phase as a multicriteria decision making problem with tangible and intangible criteria and propose an Analytic Network Process (ANP) model. ANP is able to determine criteria weights considering dependency and feedbacks among them. Multi-criteria decision-making methods for personnel selection in the air traffic control is a new area, and only few studies are available in the literature. Five main criteria are determined through a survey, as communication skills, stress control, attention level, job interest and self-reliance. The evaluation of the candidates for each criterion is made using rating method due to large number of alternatives. Finally, the ranking obtained by ANP and rating method is compared with the current system.