Topline
The Federal Aviation Administration’s “zero tolerance” policy for unruly passenger behavior is here to stay, agency chief Steve Dickson said Friday, amid efforts to stem cases of unruly travelers that surged during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Key Facts
Dickson’s comments were made on CNBC that unruly passenger incidents were occurring at “too high of a rate,” though he acknowledged such cases have dropped in the past year.
The “zero tolerance” policy allows the FAA to pursue legal enforcement action against any passenger who assaults, threatens, intimidates, or interferes with air crew, without issuing warnings.
The rate of unruly passenger incidents halved as of September after hitting a record high in early 2021, the FAA website said, adding “but there remains more work to do.”
Unruly passenger incidents occurred at roughly 4.1 times per 10,000 flights in the week ending on March 13–still higher than roughly three times per 10,000 flights at the end of 2020, according to the FAA.
Mask-related in-flight disputes continued to make up the bulk of unruly passenger cases this year; around 65% of the 961 unruly passenger reports were mask-related as of March 21, according to agency data.
Last year, around seven in 10 unruly passenger cases were mask-related.
Surprising Fact
The number of cases the FAA investigated for violations of one or more of the agency’s regulations or federal law totaled around 1,100 in 2021, up six times from the previous year, agency data showed.
Key Background
The FAA rolled out the “zero tolerance” policy in January 2021 to curb in-flight disputes. The FAA referred 80 unruly airplane passengers to the FBI to be reviewed for criminal prosecution between January 2021 and February 16, 2022. As part of efforts to ensure safety on board, Delta Air Lines CEO Edward Bastian sent a letter to the Justice Department in January, asking to put unruly travelers on a national “no-fly” list to prohibit them from commercial airplanes.
