How to practice ethical business?

As I mentioned in the previous blog, ethics nowadays is an emerged topic. Every organization despite how large or how small it is, ethic practices are the most concerned in the way it is doing business. The most obvious reason is that it doesn’t want to be boycotted by the consumers. However, it is hard to balance between ethical practices and standing profitable. It is because on the way to approach ethical conduct, it might cost some of the revenue which gained by organization. Some of the aviation organizations in US are examples.

According to Patterson, 2012, standard coach seat for low cost airlines widths range from 17 to 19 inches between the armrests. Due to the reason of “the seat is a revenue generator”, those organizations are trying to maximize their revenue by designing 3 seats in each side on the aircraft. Besides that, a vice president of seat manufacturer stated that the seats are closer together and researcher of human body measurement, Kathleen Robinette, said that the Americans are getting bigger for the three decades. Meanwhile the customer’s comfort is being compromised when purchasing low fare flight.

On the other hand, one of the aviation companies, Southwest Airlines, in US was faced to an issue of discrimination. According to Chang and Stuart et al, 2012, Southwest questioned two passengers about their weight in the presence of more than 100 others, and they were requested the two passengers to step out the flight because of the reason: ”too fat to fly”. Besides that, in 2013, a passenger name Matthew Harper who weighs 154 kg was asked to step off the flight from Chicago with a reason of overbooking. In fact, the main reason was that this gentleman is over size.  Besides that, Mr. Harper reported that there were two people who even bigger than him but they were not refused to board in. It made him “felt like a criminal” (Kim, 2013). Those actions were criticized. Currently, it has “Customer of size” policy and those oversized passengers have to pay 2 seats per one ticket. The reason for that policy is that oversized customer will disturb the neighbor passengers by encroach the armrests.

As discussed earlier, passengers who purchase cheap flights compromise their comfort on the air. It means that the bigger body size, the lesser comfortable on the flight for the customers. The discussion can be started from those issues. Due to the positioning of low fare airline, Southwest has to minimize the cost and maximize the revenue in order for it to survive sustainability. Therefore, tightening seat space compare to other full service airlines is acceptable and it is nothing wrong for doing that because the “seat is the revenue generator”. However, Southwest charge double seat for those who oversize because the reason of disturbing from them to neighbor passengers by encroach the armrests. It might lead to dissatisfy for both oversize customer and the neighbor. Is it ethic for the airline to do so? If this aviation company double charge for “too fat to fly” customers, it will be claimed as a discrimination action. If the airline doesn’t take any action on this problem, it might bring dissatisfaction to those neighbors. It’s a dilemma for the Southwest on this ethical issue.

As an individual who figures out and understands the situation, I found out that there always has a solution for any dilemmas. It’s just only how people choose the way to deal with them. Agree that in order to pursue low cost positioning, Southwest must have strategy to minimize the cost and maximize the revenue; nevertheless, double charge is not the only way to keep satisfaction for the neighbor guests and bring comfortable for overweight customers. Due to the Americans are getting bigger in those three decades, it means that number of overweight people are increased. Therefore, Southwest can redesign by adding the additional inserted part on the two line seats which next to the walkway on the aircraft. When there is any oversize customer board in, the flight attendants assist them by inserting the additional part of seat for them without any charges. Although it mays cost the airline, it can help to enhance the service as well as improve the low cost airline image for the company. Besides that, this brings ethical image for the company as well.

Sometimes, simple method can help to solve the problem which may be hard to solve. In this situation, just adding the inserted space for the seat, Southwest can deal with the problem which considers as the dilemma. This innovation enables the organization doing business in this situation in the most ethical practice. 

References

Patterson, T. 2012. Airline squeeze: It's not you, 'it's the seat'. [online] Available at: http://edition.cnn.com/2012/05/30/travel/airline-seats [Accessed: 28 Jun 2013].

CHANG, J., STUART, E., EFFRON, L. and HAWKINS, S. 2012. 'Too Fat To Fly' Passenger Sues Southwest Airlines For 'Discriminatory Actions'. abcnews, [online] May 3, 2012. Available at: abcnews.go,com [Accessed: 18 June, 2013].

Kim, S. 2013. Man Claims He Was Kicked Off A Southwest Airlines Flight For Being Too Fat Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/man-kicked-off-flight-for-being-too-fat-2013-4#ixzz2WSzACqUH. [online] Available at: http://www.businessinsider.com/man-kicked-off-flight-for-being-too-fat-2013-4 [Accessed: 17 Jun 2013].