Throughout the twenty-first century, many unprecedented revolutions have come into existence. In the technetronics domain, the age of Technology was understood to be mankind’s way of overcoming the various obstacles that once limited the human capital. During the infancy of the Jet Age around the 1950s, many mysteries were solved through that amazing chain of invention. Over the past few decades, however, as evidence has clearly demonstrated the insidiousness that flying entails, safety becomes the mindset of the airline industry. There are many economic factors associated with airline safety.

Implementing new guidelines helps addressing the safety issue. After the recent tragedies of September 11, American Airlines along with numerous other airline companies has begun renovating its safety standards. In order to increase the feasibility of the plan, Civil Aeronautics Board investigators have began reading information from flight recorders which provide a detailed history of the flight, logging information on more than 100 technical aspects, including power- and flight-control settings, engine performance, altitude and gravitational forces and resolving some of the initial problems caused by previous crashes. Basically, the airline industry is taking all the possible steps necessary to insure safety in the aviation system.

The Airline Industry has taken a new approach on securing airplanes. Many airliners have begun implementing new security measures including cockpit locks and limited carry-on. In addition, the government rapid-response teams along with armed National Guardsmen at airport security checkpoints recommend more baggage-scanning equipment and FBI checks of passenger lists. According to Charles Leblanc, managing director at Air Security International, reconstructing airport security will resume in the next six months from adopting new theories to putting them into effect. Some suggestions such as retraining flight crews on how to handle an attempting hijacking and allow pilot to carry guns could add some exponential factors to the timing. Above all, timing is far from being the main problem; instead, the disparity that exists between the procedures throughout the system is causing the disruption. At Washingtons Dulles airport, screeners at one checkpoint were doing a thorough check of bags and staff at a checkpoint 25 yards away wasn't checking anything says David Stempler, president of the Air Travelers Association. Based on the obtrusiveness of the systems failure, the aviation industry needs to go a step further to minimize the gaps and create the congruency that will get the system auspiciously off the ground.

Pilot errors play an important role in airplane crashes. According to Susan P. Baker, one of the authors of a report by Johns Hopkins researchers, there is a very high correlation between bad weather and pilot error. Since the dawn of the jet-age, pilot error has been blamed as the primary cause of about three-quarters of all air crashes. While many opposing parties are still trying to reach consensus about the real causes of some plane crashes, air-crash investigators know that there is rarely a single cause in an air crash. Usually, there is a series of events leading gradually to a major problem. Unfortunately, as the situation gets more demanding, the pilot becomes more susceptible to make error and ultimately loose control of the aircraft. In some older airplanes, a pilot needed to try to maintain a constant picture in his mind about what his aircraft was doing and where it was going. Moreover, he was helped by a co-pilot and both were advised by a flight engineer who would sit behind them monitoring instruments. Now, however, computers automate most of the rudimentary tasks and replace the flight engineer, which to a large extent is the economically equivalent move, but according to some safety experts one of the biggest problems pilots face is that of interacting properly with their high-tech cockpits. Therefore, improving our ability to predict poor weather conditions and providing better guidance to pilots in precarious situations would be an optimistically efficient approach toward the safety issue.

In addition to errors leading to crashes, pilot fatigue is one of the main causes of many crashes. According to Mark R. Rosekind, president and chief scientist of the Cupertino, California, pilot fatigue is defined as a collection of symptoms that are experienced from disrupting sleep and our internal biological clock. That is to say, operating at night and flying across different time zones can disrupt the normal human sleeping pattern simply because the body thinks its supposed to be asleep. As a result, sleep deprivation, does not only it incapacitate pilots to maintain safe flying, it increases susceptibility to errors and most importantly, accidents. Moreover, the first step in implementing alertness management programs is to develop training strategies, educate crews, and move to improve scheduling, Rosekind writes. Many carriers, including Airborne Express and UPS, are in the early planning stages aiming toward minimizing and even eventually eradicate pilot fatigue from the airline industry. Furthermore, to efficiently deal with the fatigue issue, it is imperative that the aviation industry take a different approach to the situation at hand. For instance, a recent survey conducted by NASA illustrated that a scheduled nap in flight improved performance 34% and alertness 100%. British Airways, Air New Zealand and Qantas and Finnair have already adopted the new rest- period theory, but despite that degree of success, the FAA has never moved forward on it.

The Airline Industry has yet to renew consumer confidence in the safety of air travel. Over the past few weeks, Congress has been struggling with how to restore faith in a flawed system that allowed 19 hijackers onto four jets, causing the deaths of more than 5,000 Americans. Moreover, the Senate unanimously approved a bill that would strengthen the air-marshal program, provide enhanced anti-hijacking training for flight crews and fully federalize the airport security system. House Republicans, on the other hand, wish to gain control of the situation by selecting a system of privately contracted employees with federal oversight, the glaring loophole in the now inconsistent system. According to many U.S. Senators including Bob Graham, rebuilding confidence is one of the first steps that will help Americans feel comfortable getting back on airplanes and ultimately rejuvenate the tourism industry. The main component in restoring faith encompasses improving consistency and uniformity of airport security throughout the nation. Generally speaking, all airports follow Federal Aviation Administration procedures; however, the guidelines are construed and carried out differently by individual airlines. For instance, in Jacksonville, Florida, to access some terminals, a plane ticket as well as photo of identification is required, as opposed to some others terminals whereby only a plane ticket is required. By covering all the safety characteristics, consumer confidence will ulterioly get to a level where people will deem flying as one of the safest means of transportation.

Because of the problem of scarcity, there will always be an imbalance between the amount of safety the airline industry provides, the safety level that it needs to boost consumer confidence about flying and resources in place to minimize to gaps and help facilitate air travel in the future. Technology has revolved around virtually all levels of existence during the Jet Age. We design machines so well, now it is the human that creates the risk. The safety issue encompasses factors dealing mostly with human instead of airplane itself. Specifically, the FAA needs to take positive actions in what has been proven to work and regulate accordingly. Moreover, the nationwide standardized procedures have to be strictly implemented. Subsequently, by conquering those major characteristics, the airline industry will hopefully be where it once was which could be the culmination of many years of blood-and-guts battles, but nonetheless, it entirely possible.