Re: CAA: Mutual Help List, Mutual Help List, "Ethics & The Administration of Public-Use Airports"

["TCook" <TCook@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Steve,

Is Ethics and Public-Use an oxy moron?

The administration of airports is not an autonomous function. The director
and staff of an airport could have strong ethical standards by which the
department is determined to function, only to have those ethical standards
undermined by strong political surrounding forces, such as the airport
owners governing administration.

At what point, (there really isn't any defining point) do you give up career
choices i.e., employment versus unemployment,  promotion or salary
increases, to do what is best for the taxpayers, users and real people of
the community to which the airport really belongs, rather than support the
unethical decisions that the governing administration is directing staff to
support?

"if you can't fight em, or if your losing the fight, do you join em, or do
you just move on?

The ethical dilemma is between what you do when no one will find out and
what you don't do because of personal consequences if everyone found out?



----- Original Message -----
From: "Stephen Irwin" <stepheni@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <help@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Tuesday, June 25, 2002 7:31 AM
Subject: CAA: Mutual Help List, "Ethics & The Administration of Public-Use
Airports"


> Given recent allegations of unethical and possibly illegal activity at
> several large U.S. airports I thought it might be interesting to start a
> thread on ethics in our industry. Are the allegations an alarming trend
> in our industry or simply a reflection of a broader problem in what
> seems an ethically challenged business culture in our society? What
> obligations do we have to the traveling public, local taxpayers and
> tenants? If something were technically legal (statutory issues) or
> compliant (regulatory issues) but POSSIBLY unethical or POTENTIALLY
> unsafe, what factors would we consider when reaching a decision? How
> fine do we split hairs in order to reach some desired outcome? In that
> mental cost benefit analysis we're all paid to perform numerous times
> every day, how much weight do we give to 'doing the right thing'
> regardless of the financial or personal consequences? Someone once
> defined character as how you behave when you know no one will ever find
> out? What is the current state of ethics in our industry?
>
> I look forward to the discussion.
> Warm regards,
> Steve
>
>
>    Find past Mutual Help topics in the CAA Help Forum
>
http://www.californiaaviation.org/cgi-bin/dcforum/dcboard.cgi?conf=DCConfID6
>
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