Airline and Tourism Industry: Global, Legal, and Ethical Issues

Running Head: AIRLINE AND TOURISM INDUSTRY 0
Airline and Tourism industry
Global, Legal and ethical issues
System04122
3/8/2019

AIRLINE AND TOURISM INDUSTRY 1
The airline industry is one of the strongest industries, but from past 2 to 3 years, it is
facing lot of issues, such as increase in the fuel prices, uncomfortable seats, terrorism
and certain others. All of these things are highly affecting the growth of the airline
industries. Due to change in certain laws of various countries, that affects an airline
industry, one of the biggest concerns is the increase in competition, which gives people
a lot of option to switch from one airline to another, and thus it is important for all the
airline industries to follow various guidelines to attract customers (BLUM, 2010). Apart
from this, the tourism industry is facing various issues such as high taxation and
consumer issues as it is one of the industry that influence the economic development of
the country to a great extent. This essay will show the impact on airline and tourism
industry by the global problems such as technology, globalization and infrastructure. In
addition, some of the legal factors such as the different laws of the country are essential
for the companies within these industries to comply and conduct their operations
accordingly. Lastly, ethical factors affect both the industries, which consist of
environmental issues, consumer service, advertisement and over-booked flights. Both
the industries are strong industries and exert influence on the economy of any country.
Thus, the essay will mention and discuss the global, ethical, and legal issue, which
influences the growth of these industries (Abeyrante, 2009; Belobaba, 2015).
The state of the airline is very strong in today’s world, according to a study the number
of flyers in the world as increased by 6.6% in 2017. Apart from this, the world’s 20
busiest airports have also seen a growth of 1.5 billion passengers (Business insider,
2018). However, the airline industries are facing many issues on a global level, and the
first and foremost global issue is terrorism. Although the amount of terrorist attacks on
the airlines has reduced, but still the incidents of 9/11 and other tragic events still affect
the minds of people. As result of this the airline industry have increased the security and
services around the world in order to remain observant, from the past years the security
have become strict and as a result of which the the costre are longer checkpoint, wait
times and complains from the travelling passengers (Winston, 2010).
The customers are highly affected by all this as they get less room space individually.
Another major issue that affects the airline industry is the political issues, airline is the

AIRLINE AND TOURISM INDUSTRY 2
medium between various nations and a flying ambassador for the homeland but
between all these things, caught up between the political matters. One of the recent
examples of this is when Trump administration, which included ban on travellers from
some of the Muslim majority nation, he also banned laptops from the cabins of various
selected flights (business insider, 2018)
Another issue that is globally affecting the airline industry is the passenger comfort. The
airline investors believe that the lower the cost of the unit, it would be easy to attain the
target. Airlines are now a days filling more seats in each of their planes (Business
insider, 2018).
Technology is another issue, which has affected the growth of airlines; technology has
been one of the greatest things for the airline industry. One of them is the biometrics,
which is going to change the airport experience totally. Technology has changed
everything being the inflight entertainment or the flight manuals (Business insider,
2018). Nowadays, the airline industry is very dependent on the technology for all of its
work. Moreover, in last few years due to insufficient investment for the technology, it
resulted in computer outages, that affected the airline operations and growth in
consideration to the threat of cybercrime. The airline industry needs to work hard in
order to stay in the market with its increasing competition.
Besides, fuel has been one of the significant issues for the airline industry is as the fuel
cost in the previous years has been low, which helped the airlines. However,
rebounding of the fuel cost can affect the airlines, as it will have to learn to survive in the
higher cost environment. Last issue, which is affecting the airline Industry, is pilot
shortage, the airline industry is expanding year buy year and every airline industry is
looking for people to fly but there is shortage of people to fill this job and for training a
new pilot, it takes a lot of money and time (Shaw, 2011).
Some of the ethical issues of airline industry includes the over booking of the flights.
Airlines sometimes refuse the passengers to board the flight even when they have
confirmed reservation for the flights; because of overselling flights. According to the
southwest airlines, the airline industries overbook flights to fill the empty seats in case

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the other passengers cancel. Incase none of the passenger cancels than the airline
dump the other passengers. This becomes an ethical challenge for the airlines. As they
do such things just for monetary benefits and this is an unethical practice by the airline,
and further it mentions the issue of cramped seats within airlines. In order to reduce the
operating cost of the airlines, the airline industries place as many seats as possible on
the airplane. This creates the problem of cramped situations in the cabin and makes
the passenger uncomfortable that can further impact the passengers health as seating
in a cramped place for a long time can increasing the risk of blood clots and other
issues (Manvelyan, 2018).
False advertisements in another vital ethical issue within airline industry, as they
emphasize on making false claims to their customers, and do not fully disclose their
price. According to many passengers, the airline sites show different price while booking
but at the end of the transaction it applies heavy amount of taxes. Such dishonestly and
switch in prices leaves a long-term impact on the passenger’s experience.
Airline industry represents the issue of discrimination with their passengers; the way
airline industry behaves with overweight passengers demonstrates a major ethical issue
for the airline industry. For example: A 2012 article in the “new york post” reported death
of an overweight woman when she was denied by 3 flight while returning to Hungary,
she was assigned multiple seats in each flight but was refused by the airline on each
flight saying that the seats are not for her an eventually she died. Her husband claimed
it was because of the airline, as the airline industry did not allow her to reach home for
her medical treatment (Doganis, 2008).
In this, we will be discussing the ethical issues of the tourism industry. The travel and
tourism industries have many ethical issues such as green issues ethics, unethical
consumer issues, leakage of income and Tourism has a wide range of its types, but the
most damaging type of tourism is the one that mass markets there are two types of
holidays one is all inclusive holidays and enclave tourism resorts.