The Model to Practice Dialogues™

Flying an international route from The Netherlands to the United Arab Emirates

For this case model assignment, we interviewed a purser. A purser makes sure that everything is prepared before the flight takes off, is the host of the passengers and oversees the cabin crew on the flight, and afterwards she writes a reflection about the flight and its cabin crew. All in all, the job of a purser contains a lot of diversity within its tasks and duties. As a purser she has to deal with many different cultures. This entails that it is expected from her to adjust to the situation that presents itself and learns the basics of the culture that is dominant in the fligt and the culture of the destination of the flight (C. Versteeg, personal communication, May 9, 2021). The questions that were asked in the interview were asked in order to establish an understanding of the work methods and adjustments that are being made by this particular Airline once they have a destination to a foreign culture, and / or when dealing with passengers from different cultures.

Overview

The airline we interviewed s an international company which flies to 133 destinations in 70 countries over the world. Flying to all these culturally diverse destinations means that the airline has a responsibility to adapt their way of working to be able to treat their passengers and employees with respect and provide high-quality services. This will lead to gaining the trust and loyalty of the passengers and employees (C. Versteeg, personal communication, May 9, 2021).

The Airline has to take a lot of matters into consideration to be fully prepared for a flight to another culture. The United Arab Emirates has a culture that has many differences compared to the Dutch culture. These cultures can easily be compared with each other with the use of the framework of Mr. Hofstede, and with describing the six dimensions (Hofstede Insights, 2021).

First of all, the United Arab Emirates is a Muslim country, which brings its needed adjustments at flights with it, things as uniforms, alcohol and more needs to be taken into consideration. Furthermore, the power distance is fairly high compared to the Dutch culture meaning that it is more accepted and expected to distribute power unequally in the United Arab Emirates. Denying a request from your manager would be very prohibitive in the United Arab Emirates, while in the Netherlands this is nothing out of the ordinary. The United Arab Emirates is more group orientated and scores rather low on Individualism which insinuates that the culture is more interdependent rather than dependent, it has an collectivistic culture. Additionally, it is more orientated on achievement rather than quality of life which implies the culture to be masculine. Furthermore, its culture is short-term orientated and orientated on restraint rather than indulgence meaning that in this culture it is believed that the past provides a moral compass and it does not deal with a lot of change which relates to the feeling that duty is the normal state of being instead of freedom. Lastly, its need for certainty is higher meaning that the United Arab Emirates rather avoids uncertainty as it is preferred to have fixed rituals and habits (Hofstede Insights, 2021).

Therefore, the Airline will do anything to make the correct adjustments on the flights towards the United Arab Emirates, to be respectful towards each culture.

Outcome

The outcome of these cultural differences between the Netherlands and the United Arab Emirates is that there are adjustments being made to the flights between the countries. An example of such an adjustment is that the cabin crew makes sure that the glasses in the business class get emptied and that there is no more alcohol in it before the flight. And as said our interviewee said: “We do not change our behaviour towards culturally diverse passengers, we make adjustments and take their culture into consideration in order for them to feel respected and at ease” (C. Versteeg, personal communication, May 9, 2021). The rest of the outcomes will be defined according to some of the dimensions.

Power distance

As the United Arab Emirates is a society in which there is a fairly large power distance, the Royal Dutch Airline tries to make sure that there is a purser and senior purser on board along with the cabin crew. As the United Arab Emirates its culture is hierarchically orientated they want to make sure that there is a certain hierarchy onboard as well. This will make the passengers feel at ease, as if problems arise they can speak to the highest in the hierarchy if needed, which is the custom in their culture which will not make them feel inhibitive (C. Versteeg, personal communication, May 9, 2021).

Uncertainty avoidance

As the United Arab Emirates has a culture in which it is preferred to have fixed rituals and habits, the Airline tries to make sure to include local flight attendants on the flights. This will create a feeling of trust and being recognized and known which in turn will leave a feeling of certainty. Furthermore, the employees of the Airline have an information briefing before every flight. In this briefing they discuss the expected cultural differences and they get to see a short film about the culture they are flying to. This creates a feeling of certainty for the employee which they radiate towards the customers, and makes sure that they can treat the passengers accordingly and with respect (C. Versteeg, personal communication, May 9, 2021).

Indulgence

The United Arab Emirates its culture is more orientated on restraint than indulgence, as mentioned before. As the normal state of being is duty, not freedom, it can be expected that most of the passengers are not there to celebrate that they are a free human being, which most of the western cultures do feel when they are on an airplane (Hofstede Insights, 2021).

Possible solutions / Best practices

Most of these issues get addressed by having a meeting before every flight and talking about what could be perceived as prohibitive/inhibitive in different cultures. So what is important is to look out for and they also talk to colleagues from the culture of the destination they are going to. To make sure there are no issues. So if the flight is to the United Arab Emirates, in their meeting they will talk to colleagues who are from this culture to figure out what to look out for so there are no more issues. And they will also use these colleagues on the flight itself. Having these meetings helps make the employees of the Airline aware of certain things to look out for which they would potentially never even consider. That is because they’re not from that culture. The purser has the responsibility to write an evaluation of the flight and the cabin crew after it has landed. This is that the cabin crew can be provided with feedback and so that the Airline is up-to-date about its staff operations. So any time an issue does occur they can talk about this in the next meeting so they keep learning from their mistakes. And an issue that occurred once will probably not happen again. This way of preventing issues is very dynamic because you can keep learning and improving and new issues can be addressed and prevented. This way of prevention makes it very unlikely the same issues will happen more than once. As long as the issue is recognised correctly. Furthermore, as the power distance and individualism are the two dimensions with the biggest differences this is where the Airline should have its focus on. The Dutch score 38 out of 100 on power distance while the United Arab Emirates scores 80 out of 100. For individualism it is the other way around, the United Arab Emirates scores 38 out of 100 and the Dutch have an overall score of 80 out of 100. With a difference of 42 points in each of these dimensions it is clear that the difference is significant between the cultures (Hofstede Insights, 2021). These dimensions could result in the biggest issues if the cabin crew exists out of Dutch employees and the flight is going to the United Arab Emirates. All in all, the Airline has proven itself to work accordingly and respectfully with different cultures and there is not much to improve.

Student Authors

Joël Dekker (LinkedIn)
Amsterdam School of International Business, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam the Netherlands
Block 4 , Semester 2, 2021

Thomas Visser (LinkedIn)
Amsterdam School of International Business, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam the Netherlands
Block 4, Semester 2, 2021

Gideon Plet (LinkedIn)
Amsterdam School of International Business, Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences, Amsterdam the Netherlands
Block 4 , Semester 2, 2021