When one or several passengers aboard a plane get out of hand, flight crew have several options.
While trying to de-escalate the situation is always the first step, passengers who become physically aggressive or otherwise threatening are labeled according to a four-tier threat system ranging from "suspicious or threatening behavior" to behavior that is "life-threatening" and "attempted or actual breach of the flight deck."
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Higher threat levels often lead to a flight being diverted and the passenger restrained until the plane lands and officers come aboard to lead the passenger off. In some cases, the case also gets referred to the FBI.
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Travelers who 'yelled, cursed, threw objects'
On August 8, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that it sent 22 additional instances of unruly passengers aboard commercial flights for "criminal prosecution review" to the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the second quarter of 2023.
This brings the total number up to 39 cases since the start of 2023 — a small and most extreme segment of the "unruly passenger incidents" that occurred on one in every 568 flights in 2022.
According to the FAA, the incidents referred to the FBI include a bomb threat, instances of physical assault and a passenger who "sexually/physically assaulted an unaccompanied minor." Another passenger reportedly "yelled, cursed, threw objects at passengers and had to be restrained in cuffs" on a flight this past spring.
The reported incidents date between December 2021 to April 2023. As the FAA can only hand out fines of up to $37,000 for disruptive behavior, it refers cases that would otherwise face criminal changes to the FBI and Justice Department. Since 2021, the FAA referred more than 270 such cases to the FBI.
Pilots, flight attendants speak out against traveler behavior
Amid the rush of post-pandemic leisure travel, there has also been an increase in everything from verbal abuse of flight crew to outright violence. While FAA's reports of "unruly behavior" reached a 6,000-plus peak amid the return of air travel in 2021, the agency says that "unacceptable behavior continues to occur."
There were 2,455 such incidents in 2022 and 1,177 so far in 2023. Some of the more egregious recent incidents include a Delta Air Lines (DAL) -) flight in which a passenger stabbed himself in the neck and proceeded to threaten and give a small cut to a flight attendant who tried to subdue him and a passenger who made a false bomb threat to divert the plane and avoid the members of the Sinaloa cartel he thought were waiting for him at the Seattle airport.
Amid continued instances of travelers behaving badly, flight attendants and pilots have been going public on social media to implore passengers to be more respectful and patient aboard their flights — and, in particular, not to take out frustration over delays and cancelations caused by an understaffed industry on workers who are already stretched thin and overworked.
"I shouldn't have to say [that you have to be nice]," the pilot of a Boeing 737 (BA) -) flight said in the overhead cabin announcement that recently went viral on TikTok. "You people should treat people the way you want to be treated. But I have to say it every single flight because people don't."
