Unfriendly skies: FAA releases PSA after thousands of unruly passengers are reported
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Unruly passengers aboard commercial flights are making the skies anything but friendly, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.
In its effort to curb what it has described as a dramatic increase in unruly or dangerous behavior aboard passenger airplanes, the FAA released a public service announcement Tuesday with a simple message: "Unruly behavior doesn't fly."
New Unruly Passenger Numbers since 1/1/2021:
- 3,988 unruly reports
- 2,928 refusing to wear a mask reports
- 693 investigation initiated
- 132 cases with penalties
Learn more at https://t.co/UpB2VL14s9.#FlySmartpic.twitter.com/yEMvPoaR1j
— The FAA ✈️ (@FAANews) August 24, 2021
The 33-second video depicts pilots speaking over airwaves to relay messages like "We've got a disruptive customer in the back," "We'd like to divert" and "We need to get off the airplane." Shouts and sounds of commotion are heard while ominous music plays.
The FAA posted the video Tuesday on Twitter, along with statistics about unruly passengers this year.
There have been 3,988 reports of unruly behavior, 2,928 of them about passengers' refusing to wear masks, said the tweet, which said 693 investigations have been initiated this year, as well as 132 cases with penalties.
The FAA gets 100 to 150 formal cases of bad passenger behavior in a typical year.
The FAA recently reported that 34 passengers accused of unruly behavior on planes face more than $500,000 in fines, bringing the total amount of proposed civil penalties to more than $1 million this year.
As of last week, 22 of the 34 new cases involved passengers who did not follow the mask mandate the Transportation Security Administration extended in January, according to the FAA.
Some of the most extreme incidents were those like that involving a passenger on a JetBlue flight from New York to Orlando, Florida, on May 24 who was accused of throwing objects at other passengers, refusing to stay seated and lying on the aisle floor, according to the FAA. The passenger, who was fined $45,000, was also accused of grabbing a flight attendant by her ankles and putting his head up her skirt, which forced the pilot to make an emergency landing in Richmond, Virginia.
Inside a flight attendant self-defense training as bad passenger behavior surges
Another incident, on a JetBlue flight from New York to San Francisco on May 16, involved a passenger who was accused of snorting what appeared to be cocaine, which crew members confiscated, the FAA said.
The wild behavior has sometimes led flight crews or passengers to duct-tape passengers to seats to restrain them.
Passengers on a Frontier Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Miami this month taped a man to his seat after he groped two flight attendants and got into a physical fight with another, authorities said.
And last month, flight attendants taped a woman to her seat aboard an American Airlines flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Charlotte, North Carolina, after she tried to open the plane door mid-flight.
Apparently in response to duct-taping incidents, John Slater, senior vice president of inflight services for United Airlines, told employees in a memo this month to seek other solutions.
"Please remember that there are designated items onboard that may be used in difficult situations, and alternative measures such as tape should never be used," Slater's memo read.
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Just put them on the "No Fly" list, penalize them with their never being able to get on a commercial flight again, and they can spend the cost of chartering a private flight. Maybe if it gets around that that is what is going to happen to them people will act like civilized adults. Otherwise they can paddle to Hawaii in a canoe.
I was disappointed to read comments from people defending the guy who was duct taped to a seat after groping two flight attendants. They claim he was mistreated. He was treated way better than he deserved, IMO.
Grab em by the...wait...
I applauded the ones that duct taped him to the seat.
Now if they could just get parents to exert a modicum of control over their little monsters, they'd really have the unruly passenger problem under control.
Spoiled, whiny little brats .... and the kids can be bad as well .....
Having suffered a few times from uncontrolled screaming babies/toddlers right behind me on a flight, I realized that I should always have taken a couple of nipple type pacifiers with me to shove in their mouths.
Are there this many people who were raised so terribly that they have no idea how to behave in public? Adults acting like spoiled children or even like criminals and there is absolutely no excuse for it at all.
They need to make the penalties much more severe
Flying next month to Phoenix to see the new grandbaby (due in a week and a half now). We had tickets on hold from last year already paid for so I upgraded them to 1st Class. Hopefully it will be uneventful - the last time we flew we had to deplane before takeoff when one of the engines blew on startup. That took almost 2 hours.
Awesome. Enjoy!
Now there is a confidence builder. People this is your captain speaking, pay no attention to the engine on fire outside your window. We have it under control...
Hope you have a great trip.