The act of whistleblowing also carries a negative impact on the person's health, employment and personal relationships. In the aviation industry specifically, the Federal Aviation Association does have legislation in place in order to help the whistleblower, the Whistleblower Protection Program, but only protects those who work in FAR Part 121 and 135, but not 91 operations. Whistleblowers affect every industry, including the aviation industry.

1. Whistleblowing in Aviation
Whistleblowing is defined as an employee making a formal or public complaint about a
company’s misconduct in order to bring attention to the company’s wrongdoing. The
whistleblower acts in good faith in order to raise attention about the company’s unlawful practice,
but they also face risk reprisal from employers, being demoted, reassigned or even fired. The
overall perception of a whistleblower is bad because it makes the person seem as if they are
“outing” their company. This person can even be “scarlet lettered” from any other future
companies because they will not be able to be trusted with companies secretes. The act of
whistleblowing also carries a negative impact on the person's health, employment and personal

2. relationships. In the aviation industry specifically, the Federal Aviation Association does have
legislation in place in order to help the whistleblower, the Whistleblower Protection Program, but
only protects those who work in FAR Part 121 and 135, but not 91 operations. Whistleblowers
affect every industry, including the aviation industry.
Whistleblowers have made big impacts on the aviation industry, changing the way airlines or
mechanics do things. Most importantly though, anyone can find themselves in a position of
making a difficult decision between one’s conscious and what one is told to do by one’s boss.
This is an issue people hope to not have to face in their career but will be helpful to be
knowledgeable of.
HYPOTHETICAL SITUATION:
I am a newly hired employee in an operations department at an airport. I have only been there a
few weeks and I am still getting to know everyone and still in the process of training. During one
of my training sessions with an operations employee, I am encouraged to falsify a report about a
runway incursion as to avoid having to fill out more paperwork. I refuse, but the more time I
spend at my new job, the more I realize this is a common practice.
As an airport operations employee who is faced with this situation, I may feel the need to blow the
whistle on my fellow coworkers as to avoid tarnishing my name as an untruthful person and as to
avoid running into problems with the FAA. Before I make the decision of whether to blow the
whistle or not though, I would have to think about the consequences versus the benefits first. The
article compiled a list of the typical experience of whistleblowers and how they find themselves

3. complied to speak out: (1) awareness (2) decision of consequences (3) raising concerns internally
(4) facing the initial reprisals (5) the decision to commit fully (6) going public and the
consequences (7) the war of attrition (8) the endgame.
The first phase of whistleblowing is awareness, that is noticing there is a problem at the company
that may be illegal or morally corrupt. If I felt that falsifying reports in order to save the airport
money compromised people’s safety, I would move onto the second phase of consequences. In
this phase, the person facing the situation would list out all the possible consequences of blowing
the whistle on how the airport conducts its business. If again they felt it necessary, they should
consider raising their concerns internally. By going to other co-workers or supervisors first, they
could potentially avoid having to blow the whistle at all. If management had no knowledge about
the issue there could be changes then and there, making the airport safer. If their concerns were
met with reprisals instead, they would have to face them in phase 4. If by this point they felt
strongly about the issue, they would have to fully commit to their decision to blow the whistle and
go public with it in phase 6. Phase 7, the war of attrition, will be the battle between the airport and
the potential whistleblower in their attempt to make the airport safer for everybody. Phase 8 is the
endgame where the decision will be made of whether or not steps will be taken to right the wrong
and have things go in their favor or go in the airport's favor. After this phase, they would have
went through all the consequences of whistleblowing, and hopefully, it would all have been worth
it.
As an airport manager, whistleblowers can have a real and lasting effect on your airport, and
therefore claims must be heard and dealt with in a way that will not negatively impact your airport
and at the same time not completely dismiss the whistleblower. On the other hand, as an

4. employee, there may be a time they face the opportunity to blow the whistle, so it is important to
know the steps to take and possible consequences one might face. I believe that going into this
industry, it is important to understand both sides of the laws and regulations that protect both the
accused and the accuser.