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AIRLINE MORALITY DURING COVID-19: Airlines are considering neutralising the middle seat to reduce the risk of infection.
Are you a ‘good’ person? To those of you uncomfortably recalling your actions and feeling the weight of a guilty conscience, like after eating the last slice of cake: take a deep breath and relax. The answer isn’t black and white, even if we may wish it to be.
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ASTLY different ideas exist about what constitutes being ‘good’ and ‘bad’. It’s about moral philosophy, also known as ethics. Our behaviour is often linked to our circumstances. Instead of only theorising about moral philosophy in hypothetical situations, the Covid-19 crisis has reminded us that humans are neither inherently good, nor evil. We have the capacity to be both. Each of us should assess on which side of the morality spectrum we would like to fall during these trying times.
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FlightCom Magazine
As juristic persons, with many of the rights that natural persons have, the same holds true for businesses. Displaying admirable qualities through Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programmes during good times is easy. What sets businesses apart are their morals while navigating difficulties in a way that maintains public trust through ethical practices. CEO’s will tell you that doing so is essential for long term success. This is because pure hard-line capitalism has proven unsustainable in times of crisis. The United Nations Global Compact details
that businesses should be good corporate citizens. Gone are the days where “the business of business is business.” CSR is a twofold concept: it considers what happens within, as well as outside, the business. Internally, it includes paying employees decent wages and creating safe and enabling working conditions. Externally, it involves social contributions and minimising adverse environmental impact. The aviation industry has no shortage of impressive CSR projects during periods of economic growth: Some airlines (like EasyJet) focus on gender wage parity and diversifying the human capital pool by providing scholarships to women. IndiGo (a low-cost Indian airline) goes further by actively enabling women to balance work and family by providing day care facilities at the workplace. Others raise and donate funds to partner organisations that provide healthcare to underprivileged children. The aviation industry’s initiatives aimed at addressing climate change are particularly fascinating. Interim measures (by airlines
