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

This essay discusses the global, legal, and ethical issues affecting the airline and tourism industry. It explores the impact of terrorism, political issues, passenger comfort, technology, and more on the airline industry. It also delves into the ethical challenges faced by airlines, such as overbooking and cramped seats. Additionally, it examines the negative effects of tourism, including overcrowding and environmental damage. The essay concludes by discussing the legal issues and regulations that airlines and tourism industries must adhere to, such as safety regulations and employment laws.

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.

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The ethical factors that affect both the industries consist of environmental issues,
consumer service, advertisement and over-booked flights.
Now, the discussion will provide analysis about the legal issues of the airline industry as
they affect the overall functioning of the industry. As many countries have different rules
and regulations for the airlines, in order to provide safety and security for passengers. It
is very important for the airlines to follow all the laws and rules. This thing has affected
the cost of the airline and has forced them to maintain a level of services in comparison
to its price. Another one of the main issues for the airlines is to get an operating license
in some of the countries, due to the different legal issues and retractions. Over the
previous years, there has been an increase in the laws for the airline industry and as a
result, this has increased a customer’s expectations, and this has become a very big
challenge for the airlines.
One of the examples for this is the Lufthansa airlines; recently there have been many
changes in the environmental laws and guides of UK. It is important for Lufthansa
airlines to follow all the rules and regulations related to the environment, another issue
is the data protection laws, from the previous year’s data protection have become a
really big issue for the airline industry and hence they have to check with UK if they
have a mechanism to robust against data breaches or not. Apart from these Lufthansa
airlines has to follow certain business law too, as often there are many changes in the
norms with the international institutes such as world training organization. Apart from
this Lufthansa, airlines have to take time for the business cases, in the court. Every
country has to follow the international norms. Mostly the court cases run for years.
Before entering the international market, it is important for the airlines to carefully focus
on the specific time of the cases and lastly employment laws are one of those things
that highly affect the business model of airline industry, and thus they have to follow all
the rules related to the employment laws (Nugraha, 2018).
Tourism industries are known for bringing a huge amount of employment, and it
contributes highly to the economy (Fiander, 2013). Which is also a learning thing for

AIRLINE AND TOURISM INDUSTRY 5
everyone, but apart from this it is also known for a lot of negative things like:
overcrowding, bringing unwanted and negative behavior and most importantly for
destroying the natural environment. Tourism industry is one of the biggest industries in
the world, but it still faces many issues (Korstanje, 2014).
First and the foremost global issue is globalization. The USP of travel companies and
destination marketing mostly focus on proving the customers with a unique experience.
These industries therefore work for offering the products and services that allow the
tourist to have a great experience. The main issue with these industries is that they
have no knowledge of how to connect with a customer, these industries should focus on
the translating services and creation of effective websites which can provide customers
a good and homely experience, apart from this another issue is the taxation , tourism
industries are one of the most taxed sectors . By looking at the airline tickets, hotel
rooms one can have idea of how taxation highly affects the tourism industry and thus
the tourism industries have to focus on offering great services in comparison to its price
to balance out the situation (Veselova, 2017)
Next thing is the infrastructure, in many locations, the tourism infrastructure is
underdeveloped and outdated, and it affects tourism highly, the government should
focus on improving the current infrastructure (Brown and Hall, 2008). Next issue is one
of the most important issues, which is the security, tourism industries needs to work
towards creating better and secure infrastructure for the tourist and the travellers, which
can be done by working with the local law enforcements and the local government (Ali,
2017)
All-inclusive holidays are one of those holidays, which are owned by a tour company,
they market the holiday as all- inclusive and many people have attracted to this new
idea of fixed budgeted holidays, especially in today’s world with economy struggle
(Mason, 2015; Nelson, 2017).
Leakage of money is one of the most common issues in the all-inclusive packages. It
simply means that the money is used for improving the quality of life for the local

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people, is actually going out of the economy, nearly half of what a consumer spend on
holidays stays in the local community. Few of the examples for this are
First one is the Turkey, through a research it was found that around only ten percent of
the amount that a tourist spend on all-inclusive holidays falls into the economy. A very
less amount reaches the local area, next example is Kenya, it states that 87% of the
tourists go on inclusive holidays and after that half of the local people live on less than a
dollar a day. These all things are because the tourist pay for all the things in advance
and the one who operates the tour takes advantage of these things (Holden, 2013; Lew,
2015).
Apart from this all- inclusive holiday forces the local entrepreneurs to go out of business,
especially those who are in hospitality business such as the bars and restaurants,
because tourist can easily get food, drinks and other things at low cost from the hotel
they stay in.
Legal issues for the tourism industries are very complex, because labor and public laws
are important issues to have a focused on. Apart from these, there are many other laws,
which influence the tourism sector. However, the public safety and labor laws are the
major ones, tourism brands including the airlines cannot lose their focus on the risk
management. The legal challenges and pressures are very big for the tourism industry,
thus, it is important for these industries to have knowledge of the local laws (Gagic,
2012)
In various countries legal framework of bushiness in not so authentic in order to protect
the intellectual property rights of an organization. When a company is performing in a
market, they should carefully focus on the following things. There are certain rules and
laws that affect Thomas cook. Things like discrimination laws, copyright and intellectual
law, employment law, health and safety law and data protection law. all the companies
also have to focus on the changing business laws in the country, employment laws is
impacting the tourism industry highly and basically the finance and accounting sector
and thus to be successful in the market Thomas cook will have to follow all the legal
rules and regulations of the country (William, 2009; James and Craig, 2012).

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After the decision was in the favor of Brexit it also have some consequences not only on
UK but across Europe, this uncertainty has led to volatility in the financial market. And
can highly impact the aviation and tourism industry as well, the lower value of sterling
will result in high operating cost which will have a direct impact on the fuel and energy
as they will get more expensive and will lead to high air fares. Apart from this Brexit has
also led ton week pound, which means cost of sales are going up and bringing the
margins down. Most of the travel companies use to buy currencies in advance, so that
budget does not change every month. However, Brexit has affected a very big drop for
the travel companies as these travel companies will have to issue surcharge invoices to
cover their losses. All this will lead to cancellations and political instability around the
world, which will lead to companies failing.
This essay is a brief study of the impact on airline and tourism industry by the global
problems such as technology, globalization and infrastructure. Furthermore, it will enlist
some of the legal issues or problems such as different laws of the country, which both
the industries need to follow. Lastly are the ethical factors that affect both the industries,
which are, environmental issues, consumer service, advertisement and over-booked
flights.
Both the industries are strong industries and highly affect the economy of any country;
as both airline and tourism, industries nowadays are highly affected by the taxation
system. Airline industries have many issues in today’s world, thing like terrorism,
passenger comfort and most importantly technology, airline industry is highly dependent
on the technology and it can lead to a lot of issue if a technology glitch occurs. Another
main issue is the fuel cost for the airlines, in the previous years the fuel cost has
increased which is also an issue for the airline industry has they have to pay high
amount for fuel. Tourism is highly affected by taxation and a bad infrastructure and most
importantly due to safety issues. Safety of tourist is one of the main concerns for the
tourism industry, they can prevent from things happening by staying connected to the
law enforcements. Apart from this, the infrastructure in many places is very outdated
and old which highly affects the tourist and it is important for the government to focus on
these things in order to attract tourist. There are many ethical issues with these

AIRLINE AND TOURISM INDUSTRY 8
industries, which are, false advertisement, environment negligence, discrimination and
disrespected behavior towards the customers. Consumers have many expectations
from these industries, and it is very important for these industries to follow the rules and
regulations of a country, also behaving ethical at the same time is important too,
unethical behavior of any industry can lead to consequences.

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