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This chapter examines some of the changes that occurred in the post-9/11 airline industry and their implications for passenger safety. A 2009 white paper by the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) showed how industry decisions made after 9/11 encouraged air carriers to cut costs by parking larger airplanes and furloughing their more experienced—and therefore more expensive—pilots. This form of outsourcing proved to be especially profitable, increasing major airlines' virtual network while reducing their overhead costs. This chapter discusses the airline safety concerns arising from the furloughing of experienced airline pilots by major airlines and outsourcing of flying to their regional partners. It also considers the commonalities shared by a number of airline accidents and their ramifications for customer air safety.

This chapter discusses the primary areas of law in which psychological injury is likely to be material and relevant, and in which mental health professionals are likely to find themselves practicing. In particular, it covers tort law (both intentional and negligent), workers' compensation law, antidiscrimination law (sexual harassment, employment discrimination, housing discrimination), and laws governing airline accidents. These areas cover the majority of incidents that might give rise to litigation about psychological injuries, such as motor vehicle and other accidents, criminal victimization, harassment, discrimination, workplace injuries, and a host of other circumstances that might give rise to actions in negligence (e.g., medical malpractice, mishandling of dead bodies, consumer liability).

This chapter traces the roots of safety-related problems in the U.S. airline industry. It provides a historical background on air traffic control and highlights the power struggle between pilot influence and airplane controllability within airlines and manufacturers over the issue of aircraft design. It also analyzes the financial crisis of 2008 in order to look for trends that may prove helpful in identifying problems in the aviation industry, with particular emphasis on signs of gamesmanship and short-term profit seeking that have become so pervasive in post-9/11 aviation. Finally, it looks at a number of airline accidents to highlight some of the imperfections in air traffic regulations. It argues that regulators often did not pay enough attention to airline safety, reacting only and conducting investigations after several accidents and numerous fatalities.

This chapter examines the escalating risk taking and short-term profit seeking in the airline industry reminiscent of Wall Street strategies that led to the financial crisis of 2008. Airlines and financial institutions were originally intended to operate as public utilities of a sort. Whereas air carriers moved passengers and cargo around the world, Wall Street matched investors seeking profits with companies needing capital. This chapter considers how management and regulation of aviation and finance became extremely complex. It looks at the emergence of a new breed of airline and financial industry executives intent on expanding their business empires and making quick profits for themselves. It also discusses factors that are affecting airline safety in ways seen previously in Wall Street by highlighting the commonalities of several airline accidents that occurred in the post-deregulation period, the same period in which risks began to escalate exponentially in the financial sector.

This chapter examines safety issues, centered on inefficient air traffic control systems, and antiquated regulations that continue to plague the U.S. airline industry. It first provides a historical background on commercial jet service in the United States that dramatically altered the aviation industry. It then considers the establishment of three federal agencies with aviation regulatory oversight: the Federal Aviation Administration, whose duty is to promote and regulate aviation while monitoring airline safety; the National Transportation Safety Board, in charge of investigating airline accidents; and the Civil Aeronautics Board, which supervises all aspects of airline operations from flight scheduling to fiscal management. It also explains how the U.S. government got so deeply intertwined in the day-to-day business of airline operations in the post–World War II period. It suggests that the cutthroat competition between airlines in the early days of industry development was largely instigated by the character and personalities of airline executives of the time.