Airline Ethics

Airline Ethics



Airline Ethics

Introduction

The field of business ethics has traditionally been the domain of philosophers, academics and social critics. Consequently, much of today's literature about business ethics is not geared toward the practical needs of leaders and managers, the people primarily responsible for managing ethics in the workplace.

Ethics can be defined as a process of evaluating actions according to moral principal of values (A.Alhemoud). Throughout the centuries people were trying to choose between profit and moral. Perhaps, some of them obtain both, but every time it could have roused ethical issues. Those issues concern fairness, justice, rightness or wrongness; as a result it can only be resolved according to ethical standards. Setting the ethical standards for the way of doing business in corporation is primarily task of management. Corporations have to maintain the same standards as an individual person and, in addition, corporations, as organizational units, have their own social responsibilities toward customers, employees and society. However, any business should keep it?s original purpose of functioning - making profit. Balancing the traditional standards of profitability and burden of social responsibilities is not an easy task. In recent years it has been a trend of setting standards of corporate ethics according to a high degree of morale.

Ethics are essential in the Airline industry because they are the framework that guides individuals in the process of making business decisions. They usually encompass three features i.e. an application of one's professional skills, incorporation of one's personal values and lastly, good judgment. Codes of ethics are formal declarations of the moral values that guide various companies. Therefore, in the field of ethics, one can analyze an industry such as an Airline industry through its practical implementations and also through its formal declarations.

Discussion

Conflict of interest as part of ethical guidelines/code of conduct Almost all Airline companies have formal declarations of their codes of ethics. Usually, this can be categorized under a series of topics such as conflict of interest, asset protection and working together. Conflict of interest refers to those scenarios where employees or company representatives have to decide between their interests to their employer or their personal/investment/ relationship obligations. Conflict of interest may also occur when a member of staff finds that they have to work extremely hard with certain clients and they request those suppliers/clients for rewards for their services.

This is a conflict of interest because an employee finds that they have to choose between maintaining a good name for their Airline or meeting their personal financial interests. Consequently, it becomes necessary for Airlines to clarify that this is a wrong thing. Additionally, conflict of interest may also arise when an employee works for different companies. Usually, working for other Airlines is not a violation of ethics codes in itself; however, it may become a source of conflict of interest in certain special circumstances. For example, when a staff member within one Airline company chooses to work for a competing Airline company, then this can be regarded as conflict of ...