TOPICS: Asia, Airline Industry, Business Ethics, reporting, Safety, Safety Viola
ID: 1191204 • Letter: T
Question
TOPICS: Asia, Airline Industry, Business Ethics, reporting, Safety, Safety Violations
SUMMARY: Last year, an Indian Jet Airways Boeing 777 accidentally dropped 2,500 feet while its captain was asleep and its co-pilot was absorbed in her tablet device. It was a serious mishap known as an "altitude bust" that put the plane in the wrong part of the sky where it could have collided with another jet. The pilots and airline never reported the incident to authorities. Word only reached India's Director General of Civil Aviation a few days later when an anonymous tipster alerted officials. A Wall Street Journal analysis of flight data and interviews with pilots, air-traffic controllers and aviation experts reveals patterns that indicate many other similar incidents are going unreported across the fast-accelerating Asian aviation market. In terms of annual passenger numbers, India and Indonesia both grew more than 200% during the last decade and China over 300%. Without proper accounting, experts say, airlines can't learn from mistakes and regulators can't properly assess safety risks. Even smaller incidents-like component failures and near misses on the runway-are key bellwethers for major crashes. Left undocumented, botched procedures are left to grow endemic. Part of the problem is that reporting methods vary widely around the world. Most countries are signatories to a 1944 Chicago Convention on Civil Aviation that requires national regulators to conduct investigations into accidents reported by airlines and others and provide their findings to the ICAO's head office in Montreal. But there are variations from country to country. Another concern is that Asian nations have a history of stiff punishments for people involved in safety incidents-a disincentive for employees to speak up when mistakes occur.
CLASSROOM APPLICATION: Airline safety is becoming a major issue among Asian airlines due to highly-publicized fatal crashes. What is more disturbing is that safety incidents are not being reported to the proper authorities. For example, Indonesia reported 13 serious safety incidents over a half-decade for big passenger aircraft compared to Australia's 58. On the other hand, Indonesia had 28 major accidents compared to Australia's five. In one situation, an Indian Jet Airways flight dropped significantly because the pilot was asleep and the co-pilot was messing with her iPad. This incident was never reported, and authorities would not have found out if not for a tipster. This raises serious safety concerns for Asian airlines. Many of the safety issues that have been reported in the past by the overall airline industry have been used to improve safety standards, making it incredibly important to report safety incidents. A major issue is that reporting standards are not as strict in some Asian countries than in others. Pilots flying planes that experience incidents are also reluctant to report them due to the stiff penalties often enforced against them. Unaddressed, this problem is likely to increase as the Asian airline industry is likely to rise significantly over the next two decades.
Using the Decision-Making Guide and the IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice, identify the following for the above article summary:
List three stakeholders impacted: List two principles or standards of the IMA Statement of Ethical Professional Practice that are violated and explain why.
List two other ethics tests listed in the Decision-Making Guide that could be used by a
decision maker faced with the above ethical dilemma and explain why you chose those tests.
Explanation / Answer
a.
Stakeholders are the interested parties of a business.
In an airline business, following three stakeholders are impacted if safety incidents are not disclosed:
1. Passengers: The existing and would be passengers will be in risk if they are not notified about the incident. Their journey will be in risk.
2. Management: The management should be informed the actual happening. Without this they can’t make policy or take decision.
3. Airline authority: This is the regulatory board of all airline business in a country. They need to know the actual incident for their regulation and permit.
Two principles are as below:
Safety principle: The airline has to ensure passenger safety. If something happens due to carelessness, the principle is violated and it carries life-risk of passenger. Pilot and co-pilot should not be engaged with some other work except flying.
Disclosure principle: All material facts should be disclosed for the sake of stakeholders’ interest. This principle is violated here. Since it is not done, stakeholders might be deprived and their decision could be wrong.
b.
Two other ethic tests:
Full commitment: Each and every employee should give 100% commitment while in duty. There should not be any negligence. The decision maker should also evaluate this test because of safe journey. This is also required to understand the amount of action the crew might take while facing any danger at the time of flying.
Managing mishap: This is the test of ability. If a mishap happened how the crew manages it. The decision maker has to understand whether the passengers are affected or not. If passengers are not affected the crew could be relied upon.
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