And, if the FAA thinks their operations are more professional by
requiring a minimum dress code from their employees, so be it.

There is a difference between your hotel (a privately run enterprise for
which there is lots of competition) and the FAA, a government lawmaking
entity, for which there is no alternative but sneakers. If =you= decide
that your operation works better with a dress code, you find out whether
this is true or not in your monthly profit reports. You then have a
motivation to change things if you are wrong. This ultimately leads to
better service to your clients, which is why you are in business.

However, if the =FAA= decides that their operation works better with a
dress code, then they won't find out from any kind of "profit" report,
because their customers can't go anywhere else but away, and there is
nothing useful to compare it with. If the FAA's customers go "away",
and the FAA's "profit" decreases, I doubt the FAA would be motivated to
change.

Assuming that the purpose of the FAA is safety, then to the extent that
the dress code =actually= improves safety, it will be apparant in the
NASA reports. But since there is no equivalent to the profit motive,
this is unlikely to be a useful feedback loop.

That's the difference.

Jose
--
There are more ways to skin a cat than there are cats.
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