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Aviation Professionalism Essay

Decent Essays

Aviation Professionalism

The Qualifications, Attributes, Ethics, and Responsibilities of Aviation Professionals

Yadvinder Singh

ASCI – 202

Anthony Miller

March 7, 2013

Once someone joins the Airlines industry as a professional, be it a pilot, a technician, or an air traffic controller, they are committing to a certain level of responsibility and expectation. In my experience I have come across professionals who I have felt suited their role to near perfection while others in the same position at times fall short of basic expectations.

The issue of professionalism and responsibility in the airline industry has been in …show more content…

The incident with the Northwest flight (NY Times 2009) crew is an ideal example of this. The pilots had a combined flying experience of over 30,000 hours, yet they committed an error that resulted in a major embarrassment and which could have cost lives. The main cause cited for this blunder is that the pilots were distracted during flight because they were engaged in personal matters on their laptops, which is a violation of airline safety guidelines. Is the root reason for this incident just poor judgment and misbehavior of the pilots or perhaps not enough emphasis on responsibility in their training?

The hundreds of hours of flight time required to be a pilot come with a hefty price, so anyone who is a pilot has surely proven their passion and persistence for flying. However, it’s a wonder that this same dedication doesn’t follow through for some once they’ve landed a job with a major carrier and I think it may be because the path is often so strenuous that getting a job itself is treated as the goal, when it actually is a stepping stone to really being a pilot.

Air traffic controllers have also been in the news recently with incidents of suspicion that they are distracted and even sleeping on the job (USA Today, 2011). Here is a profession where mistakes are simply not allowed because the repercussions can very likely be fatal. I think there has to be a close monitoring of on the job behavior because

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