As more people return to the traveling by plane, the largest flight attendant union in the U.S. is sounding the alarm on a rise in unruly passengers.
Eighty-five percent of the nearly 5,000 U.S. flight attendants surveyed by the Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) said they had dealt with an unruly passenger in 2021.
Almost 60% said they had experienced not one, but at least five incidents this year, and 17% reported that the incident got physical.
Flight attendants recalled incidents in which visibly drunk passengers verbally abused them, “aggressively” challenged them for making sure passengers were in compliance with the federal mask mandate, shoved them, kicked seats, threw trash at them and defiled the restrooms.
More than half of the flight attendants reported that unruly passengers used racist, sexist and/or homophobic slurs.
“I’ve been yelled at, cursed at and threatened countless times in the last year and the most that has come out of it has been a temporary suspension of travel for the passenger,” one flight attendant wrote in the survey. “We need real consequences if flight attendants are ever going to feel safe at work again.”
The AFA is doubling down on its call for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Department of Justice to “protect passengers and crew from disruptive, and verbally and physically abusive travelers.”
The FAA is still enforcing its zero-tolerance policy for in-flight disruptions, which could lead to fines as high as $52,500 and up to 20 years in prison. The agency has looked into more than 610 potential violations of federal law so far this year — the highest number since the agency began keeping records in 1995.