2026, Volume 32, Issue 1

ABSORBED BUT EXHAUSTED? PASSION FOR WORK AND WELL-BEING PROFILES AMONG AIRLINE STAFF

KAROLINA MUDŁO-GŁAGOLSKA¹, MONIKA SZURYN², PAWEŁ LARIONOW¹
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¹Faculty of Psychology, University College of Professional Education in Wroclaw
²Independent Researcher


Autor korenspondencyjny: KAROLINA MUDŁO-GŁAGOLSKA; Faculty of Psychology, University College of Professional Education in Wroclaw; email: karolina.mudlo-glagolska@wskz.pl

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Streszczenie

Introduction: Aviation operations depend on personnel who work under time pressure, irregular rosters, and safety-critical demands. This study adopted a person-centered approach to identify profiles that reflect both work engagement (vigor, dedication, absorption) and burnout (exhaustion, disengagement), as well as to investigate whether harmonious and obsessive forms of passion for work or job position predicts belonging to these profiles. 

Methods: Cross-sectional survey data were collected from 200 airline employees (pilots, junior cabin crew members, and cabin management, i.e., purser/senior cabin crew) recruited through non-probability snowball sampling. After standardizing well-being indicators, latent profile analysis was used to compare two- to five-profile solutions, and multinomial logistic regression was applied to test predictors of profile membership. 

Results: A four-profile solution was retained: Moderate engagement–low burnout (39.5%), Low engagement–high burnout (31.5%), High engagement–low burnout (17.0%), and High absorption–high exhaustion (12.0%). Harmonious passion was associated with a higher likelihood of the High engagement–low burnout profile and a lower likelihood of the Low engagement–high burnout profile. Obsessive passion differentiated profiles characterized by elevated absorption, including the High absorption–high exhaustion profile, but did not predict membership in the Low engagement–high burnout profile. Controlling for passion, pilots were less likely than junior cabin crew to belong to the Low engagement–high burnout profile.

Discussion and Conclusions: These findings suggest that, in this sample, high engagement can coincide with substantial strain among airline staff and that passion for work is associated with more sustainable and more costly forms of engagement. Given the cross-sectional design and non-probability sampling strategy, the results should be interpreted as evidence of associations rather than causal relationships. Profile-based monitoring may inform prevention and recovery-support interventions, but its practical application requires further validation in longitudinal studies using larger, more representative samples and operational data.

Słowa kluczowe

work engagement, burnout, harmonious and obsessive passion, latent profile analysis, aviation personnel