Ethics in the aviation industry – flying off course

Abstract

Truth decay and compromised ethical behavior can be observed when looking back into the history of the aviation industry. The author has presented since 2012 about related questionable views and behavior. In this presentation he compiles the "best" of his slides into one lecture that tries to give an overview of the problem at hand. Commercial aviation provides one of the strongest examples of Jevons Paradox, nevertheless the aviation industry keeps praising efficiency gains as the way to safe fuel and emissions on a global scale. Questionable goal setting with respect to aviation emissions started as early as 2000. Inside the aircraft another problem exists: contaminated aircraft cabin air. Here, the aviation industry rather fights claims of victims in court instead of working on a technical solution. The idea of massive use of air taxies is as old as 1899, but has still not come. Eventually it will most probably be a polluting means of transportation for the super-rich. Battery electric aviation has a clear range limit. Proposals that deny this fact are green washing. Grid-connected electric mobility operates successfully on tracks e.g. as high-speed trains. Claims for a large number of propellers may have been made without looking at certification rules and geometry. The year 2020 came. Those waiting to see a difference in aviation (massive CO2-compensation by the industry) to fulfill at last aviation's goal setting promise of Carbon Neutral Growth (CNG) saw – nothing. However, the Corona pandemic came after two month into the year 2020. Most aircraft rested on the ground. Subsequently, passengers saw more legends than truth about cabin ventilation. The legends were distributed by the aviation industry in an effort to retain at least a minimum of revenues. IATA turned out to be the biggest liar among all. Airbus chief engineer Jean-Brice Dumont was given the new title "guru" and explained cabin ventilation on Facebook. Emirates presented two highly protected technicians mounting a new and clean HEPA filter on an A380. Still in the same year the next legend was presented by Airbus: Aircraft burning hydrogen in jet engines would produce "zero emissions". In contrast to science, this would mean no NOx and no contrails. After the pandemic, industry could not wait to see air traffic reaching again 2019 levels and old growth figures. It was still not understood that instead a reduction in air traffic would be necessary to reach proclaimed goals. It was also not understood that regenerative energy would need to be used first to substitute coal power plants and that massive aviation regenerative electricity demands for LH2 and SAF had no chance to be addressed by society. Aviation would need to produce its green energy itself. Time scales slipped or turned out to have been lies in the first place. 2021 was the year to look back at the "money burning" A380 project. This reminded us that Airbus lied already 20 years ago when demanding a runway extension in Hamburg-Finkenwerder for the A380. The extension was not necessary, but was built (from public money) anyway and against much protest from local population and their precise engineering/aviation arguments. Aviation ethics can be summed up under: "G^4", which stands for "Continuous Growth to increase Gain to satisfy shareholders expectations can lead to Greed and to an ever more ruthless industry behavior accumulating Guilt in the end." Some aviation organizations seem not to be willing to abide by the law, even if enforced and with consequences leading to the end of company existence. Boeing gambled with saving a second angel-of-attack sensor on the B737 MAX, resulting in two crashes and 346 people dying. Airbus paid 3.6 Billion Euro penalty due to bribery. The aviation industry is far from abidance by the law and even further away from taking up the code of a respectable / honorable businessman. The list of unethical issues in the aviation industry is long.