The system for keeping peace in America s skies is creaking under the pressure of what airlines and regulators say is an unprecedented proliferation of misbehaviour. The Federal Aviation Administration has received more than 3400 reports of unruly passengers this year. But despite launching a zero-tolerance enforcement policy in January - amid a rise in conflicts often tied to mask requirements in the air - the agency said that as of mid-July it had completely closed just seven cases. The sprawling, multi-tiered system for enforcing regulations and federal laws covering passengers can take years to play out. As travel rebounds, that structure is being strained by confrontations fuelled by alcohol, hostility to mask mandates and small conflicts that careen out of control. One passenger hit a woman holding an infant amid an apparent dispute over a window shade. Another ran through business class and stomped on a flight attendant s foot after the power outlet at her seat woul
Unruly airplane passengers are straining the system for keeping peace in the sky
Michael Laris and Lori Aratani, The Washington Post
July 18, 2021
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FILE - In this Thursday, July 1, 2021 file photo, people walk through Salt Lake City International Airport in Salt Lake City.Rick Bowmer/AP
After consuming several beers and a couple of shots before takeoff, a miner started urinating near his seat on an Alaska Airlines flight, an FBI special agent recounted. Instructed to cover himself, he responded: I have to pee.
Two weeks later, a shirtless musician with a history of mental illness tried to fling open an exit door during a flight to Los Angeles as five people fought to stop him. He advised that he wanted to kill everyone, including himself, on the aircraft, another agent wrote.
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Since February, the Federal Aviation Administration has levied a total of $381,000 in fines and civil penalties against 21 airline passengers for unruly behavior on board planes, fining each at least $9,000. This came after the FAA in January adopted a zero-tolerance policy for unruly behavior inflight following the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.
But it seems to have been little deterrent, perhaps in large part because so few people actually got hit with fines.
The penalties include three passengers fined $15,000 each on Monday for misbehaving on flights in January and February, one passenger who was fined $10,500 for refusing to wear a mask, cursing at a flight attendant and delaying a flight in March and another fined $9,000 for mask noncompliance, the FAA said.