In the modern day, there are certain laws that most industries follow in order to provide service to the public, as well as protecting employees’ well being. Such laws will allow employees to display proper ethical behaviour and often, they act as “guidelines” to how they should make sensible decisions and not succumb to personal temptations.1 Otherwise, the employer has to answer for any lack of morality. In addition, there are also laws that allow one to be socially responsible. Certain responsibilities may carry dire consequences to the public and ultimately, the industry itself, if they are not taken very seriously. Thus, industries find that such laws are important to safeguard their good image to the public and retain the public’s trust in them. This is to ensure that they will not lose their capabilities to maximize profits in this ever changing world economy. One particular industry that is firm in following such laws will be the aviation and the airline industries.

In any airline industry, the safety of the passengers is their top priority.
No one will be daring enough to board an airplane if the aviation crew repeatedly failed to search for any fault within the plane before it is ready for flight. Thus, it is up to the crew, consisting of engineers and technicians, to ensure that every plane has to be thoroughly checked, repaired and fueled before any departure happens. Hence, it is their social responsibility to ensure so. Such responsibility may seem too heavy for some employees, including the fact that they are carrying a huge weight on their shoulders. It takes one mistake or negligence and that is sufficient enough to throw thousands of lives in danger. Negligence may happen if the crew does not take external factors into consideration. External factors such as weather plays an important role in the crew’s decision making whether the plane should either be cleared for takeoff or be delayed till further notice.2

Statistics had clearly shown that over a decade (Year 2000-2009), accidents and fatalities that occurred within the world airline industry are extremely high and volatile. Reports had indicated that such frequent occurrence could be due to the pilot’s proficiency and familiarity with the newly improved navigation systems. Therefore, in order to eradicate the high rate of occurrence, the management team or the aviation authorities suggested retraining or supplementary programmes, for pilots to be familiarised with the new navigation systems, to be executed. However, there is still no sound evidence that such programmes are going under way for the pilots. Hence, there is no way knowing whether these pilots had keep up with the ever changing technology that is happening within the world airline industry.3 Therefore, the aviation crew should not take full responsibility of the safety of the passengers. As a matter of fact, the authorities and the management share the same social responsibility as much as the aviation crew does.

The aviation authorities even noticed that by holding onto such responsibility, questions will be aimed by the doubtful public and the authorities have to reassure that they are taking certain measures to deal with various problems. This situation happens when the public is taken aback by unfortunate and sudden incidents. Such a situation will be when a world crisis struck the fears of many around the world, case in point, the 9/11 World Trade Centre incident. This historical and monumental incident had clearly made certain pressing issues and caused the public to be sceptical towards air travel, generally due to fear of flight. As such, the aviation authorities had to reassure the public that they are taking a firm hold on the responsibility of safeguarding passengers’ safety during flight. In addition, given the fact that safety is their top priority, the management could not afford to lose their image and thus, the demand for air travel and high costs of production.4

The 9/11 incident is said to be a shocking incident, which initiate a prolonging period of widespread fear of flight. Many even doubt that the airline industry is not doing enough to increase the level of security within airports. Apart from such fear, the world airline industry has to face economical problems such as low cost budget airlines and rising fuel prices. All of these additional factor “eventually put several companies under bankruptcy”5. Hence, from the example of the 9/11 incident, it is clearly seen that the management team does play a part in upholding the social responsibility by possibly coming up with ideas to regain the public’s trust once again, despite the economical factors.

In any industry, high level of employment is important for any economic success, as employment is very well one of the key indicators of a growing economy. As such, employees in the airline industry keep it driving and thriving. Despite that, there are certain ethical and social responsibility issues surrounding just the group of employees themselves. Issues, ranging from welfare of the employees to ‘rightful’ working attitudes, raise concerns within the industry. Therefore, it is essential for most airline industries to follow several “guidelines” closely because, as discussed, not to lose the public’s and the employees’ trust in them.6

The management team in any airline industry also has to face the social responsibility of looking after the welfare of employees in order to keep them motivated working in airline industries. This is because certain employees, specifically pilots and air stewards, stands to lose more than others due to irregular working conditions.7 Hence, the management team has to come up with welfare benefits to compensate with the poor working environment. Airline industries, such as the American Airlines, are a good example of portraying social responsibility towards its workers. They had successfully, over the years, provide excellent customer service and are constantly coming up with ideas to motivate its workers. Ideas such as providing safety concern measures, along with safety training for workers, gives confidence to fellow employees that they are working in a safe environment, since fatal injuries could happen in the airports.8 Despite the recent challenging economic problems, most airline industries are able to survive and managed to pull through by creating new jobs9, although there are certain setbacks in the employment of technicians and mechanics10.

In conclusion to the social responsibility of the welfare of airline employees, the management has to take into account of any world economy changes before being able to meet the demands of their employees. Cutting costs of production by reducing wages may seem to be a bold move, however, there are repercussions waiting to be faced by the industry. Thus, it is important for airline industries to quickly analyse the situation before performing any necessary steps in utilizing their monetary resources.

In the world airline industry today, there are several ethical issues that are rather pressing and eventually, few became a major concern as the world keeps ever changing. One of the most popular yet heated ethical issue that airline industries faces currently are climate changes and carbon dioxide emissions by airplanes. As we all know, the depletion of ozone layer gave rise to climate changes around the world. Weather predictions are no longer as accurate as it used to be in the past. Hence, it becomes a huge concern for many and thus leads to certain environmental measures such as the Kyoto Protocol or the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change. The high usage of fuels by airline industries will only mean that the emissions of deadly carbon dioxide increases at a staggering rate. It is also being said that airline industries are becoming “one of the top contributors to carbon dioxide emissions”11.That being said, the European Union (EU) is now pressing airline industries to take up certain environmental responsibilities.

Currently, several huge airline companies such as British Airways and American Airways are being targeted by the EU. British Airways develops a seemingly cost effective yet flawed plan called “Climate Change Programme”. Climate Change Programme aims to increase fuel efficiency, ground efficiency and at the same time, carbon efficiency12. In order to do so, British Airways participated itself in the UK Emission Trading Scheme (ETS). In doing so, British Airways “set voluntary emission reduction targets” in order to increase its carbon efficiency. Eventually, statistics had shown that they succeeded in bringing down their high levels of carbon dioxide emissions. Apart from that, British Airways participated in the European Commission’s research programme (IAGOS) in order to broaden their knowledge about atmospheric science and apply it to increase their fuel efficiency. Although they managed produce outstanding results, yet there are questions remained to be answered. Firstly, other industries may refuse to be eco friendly and not following suit. Hence, the external costs may still linger within Britain’s economy and British Airways’ participation may prove to be less cost effective. Secondly, the British governments are planning to widen its airline industries, however, questions that they will have to deal with future environmental problems. Despite that, no further study has been made by the government in rectifying the discussed issue. Nevertheless, British Airways’ participation in reducing high levels of carbon emission has thus far seen, ethical by the world.13 As for American Airways, they focused more on saving up fuel costs, as compared to British Airways’ participation in environmental organizations. Due to high rising fuel prices, American Airways initiate a programme of their own called “Fuel Smart”. Fuel Smart aims to reduce fuel consumption and acting as a platform to brainstorm solutions in order to deter high rising fuel prices. Statistics had shown that over a period of 7 years (Year 2005 to 2011), American Airways succeeded in saving up “more than 500 million gallons of fuel” and saved up to US$442 billion worth of fuel. Apart from that, their efforts did not fail to reduce their high levels of carbon dioxide emissions. As a matter of fact, they succeeded in reducing carbon dioxide emissions “by more than 2.6 billion pounds”. In addition, crewmembers also presented ideas upfront and apparently made several physical changes and methods to their airplanes. Such contributions did not put to waste and instead, yield satisfying results.14 In conclusion to the ethical global issue that airline industry had faced, the top airline companies (British Airways, American Airways) had taken various measures to perform sound movements in order to keep the issue at bay. However, these top airline companies had to keep monitoring the progress of controlling their carbon emission levels, which may lead to possible complications towards their resource allocation efficiency. While the top airline companies are playing their part, the EU met fierce retaliation by growing “giants”, India and China. These two leading countries refuse to step up on their measures in reducing their carbon emission levels when the EU persuades them to take actions on it. One example will be India, “boycotting European Union's carbon charge scheme”. Therefore, the EU has to make a prudent approach in making these leading countries to join the environmental movement as well.15

Over the years, sexual discrimination sparks controversies around the world. Regardless of whether male or female, both sexes are deemed to face unethical issues due to generalization or stereotyping. Such unethical issues, in fact, do exist within the airline industries. An obvious observation can be made by noticing that the employments of pilots are generally males, whereas the employments of air stewards are females. This is mainly due to the stereotyping of female’s abilities in physical demanding jobs. Nowadays, airline industries are taking up prominent measures to eradicate such unethical issues by using the Sexual Discrimination Act as a guideline. Despite that, many still feel discriminated when actions are being taken, even though there are no profound gender discriminating motivations in the first place.

Recently, several airline companies, notably British Airways, faced gender discrimination issues where adult male passengers are not allowed to seat next to unaccompanied children. The generalization here is that adult males have higher tendency to perform inappropriate sexual activities on the unaccompanied children in the absence of their parents or the flight attendants. Thus, flight attendants will make a request to the adult male passenger to change seats with the child’s mother, as it has been notably mentioned that they “prefer seating unaccompanied children next to female passengers”. As a result, this may cause the adult male passenger to misunderstand and feel rather insulted by the flight attendant’s true motive. Case in point, the court case occurred between British Airways and businessman Mirko Fischer in 2010, where Mr. Fischer deemed his case to be unethical when the flight attendant requested him to change seats.16 Females also faced gender discrimination, at a smaller scale, in airline industries when they wish to apply for jobs that are rather physical demanding such as engineers or pilots. Statistics had shown that women made up a minute percentage (5%) of the Air Line Pilots Association. However, this statistic is being derived with the reason that women generally do not see flying as a career. Despite that, there has been a history of sexual discrimination on female employees in the airline industry. Case in point, flight stewardesses are made to bring out sex appeals on businessman on board and are terminated when they reach their 30s.17 It is only in recent years that the airline industry had stepped up to eradicate such unethical issues on women by giving women’s rights, based on Sexual Discrimination Act. Overall, much progress had been made to eradicate women’s generalization, rather than men’s, in the airline industry. As a result, gender bias still prevails and are still being seen unethical by the public.