The commercial airline is an extremely competitive, safety-sensitive, high
technology service industry. People, employees and customers, not prod-
ucts and machines, must be the arena of an organisation’s core competence.
The implications are vast and pervasive affecting no less than the organisa-
tion’s structure, strategy, culture, and numerous operational activities.
Completed by 13 respondents (executives), this audit presents a series of se-
lect findings of a human resource management audit carried out in 2001-2
and contains extensive data on airlines from nine countries from around the
globe.