Government Control in Airline Safety - Essay Example

Section 601(b) of the FA Act specifies, in part, that when issuing certificates, the FAA shall give full consideration "to the duty resting upon air carriers to perform their services with the highest possible degree of safety in the public interest . . ." Why? Because safety is also related to the profitability of an airline company!

The first step would be to establish the fact that safety issue is not just about accidents, it is also about prevention. Accidents are few but they cost the company a lot of money in terms of insurance payment as well as bad publicity. In a study made by Mitchell and Maloney ( 1989), it was revealed that “found that share price falls can be attributed both to the projected future costs of higher insurance and a brand name effect associated with at-fault attribution “ (qt from. Button,1997 ).

Bad publicity is bad marketing and people lose trust in a certain carrier that is involved with frequent accidents. If management wants to avoid costs, then it must pay attention to its safety programs. The best possible way to change the management’s view about safety is to make a presentation that would justify safety as a way to minimize future costs. I would ask a group of industry specialists on safety to present to the management the benefits of safety to our company and relate it to financial matters.

The only problem with the implementation of safety is that some airlines do get favorable treatment from the government. Popular participation from citizens such as lobbying in Congress as well as writing the government should put pressure on the government to be more tight in its monitoring and control of private airline companies. It is not evil to make a profit out of rendering service, that is free trade. However, profit is not the only requirement in business as Henry Ford said. There must be an equivalent amount of service that must be given to the public when they pay for the services of the airline.

The aviation safety program is unique and that is why it is regulated and monitored by FAA. For this reason, OSHA has been active in aviation, especially after the 9/11 attacks which prompted flight attendants to support OSHA. If I were someone involved in the aviation industry, I would not find any cause for worry as far as OSHA standards are concerned. The standards are extensive in its scope. Details have been attended to carefully and all aspects of safety have been included in its guidelines for safety programs.

In a case where the State of Michigan ( represented by its District Attorney) filed a case against the government believing that Federal Act 601 violates the Tenth Amendment, the Supreme Court dismissed the petition( writ of certiorari) by stating that "it is difficult to understand how 601 could be construed in any way as affecting the state's ability to structure their governments as they see fit." ( www.justice. gov, 1995) since the act does not impede in any manner how a state should run its business.

This means that even local states cannot prevent the government ( Congress ) from regulating the industry. In conclusion, the government must regulate the airline industry since it not only enhances the profitability of companies by making the industry safe; moreover, the existing Federal Aviation Act does not in any way hamper airline industry operations .