Photo: First Coast News
It's something we've all seen on the internet what feels like a thousand times before. An unhinged, often drunken grown adult screaming obscenities and epithets on a commercial flight like a rapid-fire machine gun of awfulness. Usually, doing so at passengers and stewardesses who are just trying to get on with their day. Only to wind up forcibly kicked off the plane or tied to their chair with duct tape, only to wind up going viral online. Bonus points if they're wearing a kid-sized Burger King crown.
But would you be surprised to know that cases of unhinged airline passengers are actually going down at the moment, not up? With the world seemingly going to hell in a handbasket in all other respects, this might come as quite a shock. But as detailed by the FAA and first reported by NPR, the latest data appears to indicate that passengers on American domestic airlines are getting less rambunctious, not more so. By breaking down the numbers and looking at the facts, we might be able to find clues as to why this is the case.
According to official Federal Aviation Administration data, there were 5,973 reports of unruly or disruptive airline passenger behavior submitted to the proper authorities in 2021. Among these, a further 22 cases have been referred to the FBI for further investigation of more serious crimes. But as 2023 grinds on, the FAA's received only a fifth of the same number of unruly passenger incident reports as it did just two calendar years ago, now down to just 1,117 reports with just four and a half months left to go. If you think American airline passengers have suddenly decided to sing Kumbaya with one another, think again.
It's no coincidence that a dramatic downtick in the amount of unruly airliner passenger complaints this year coincides with the World Health Organization declaring an end to the three-year-long Covid public health emergency on May 5th, 2023. With annoying restrictions and controversial mask mandates now finally beginning to ease, it appears that airline passengers flying domestically over the U.S. have finally begun to relax during their journeys. But of course, other nagging issues like youths vaping in-flight, mistreatment of flight attendant staff, and sexual misconduct of crewmembers and other passengers continue to bedevil the industry.
As many as 270 severe cases of in-flight misconduct have been passed over to the FBI between September 2021 and April 2023. Albeit not at quite the ferocious rates that they were during the peak of the recent global health crisis. As for whether these significant downtrends will stay as they are is another can of worms entirely. Though health crisis restrictions are gone, more frequent flight cancelations and general chaos at America's major airports could lead to a new round of spikes in reports.
According to official Federal Aviation Administration data, there were 5,973 reports of unruly or disruptive airline passenger behavior submitted to the proper authorities in 2021. Among these, a further 22 cases have been referred to the FBI for further investigation of more serious crimes. But as 2023 grinds on, the FAA's received only a fifth of the same number of unruly passenger incident reports as it did just two calendar years ago, now down to just 1,117 reports with just four and a half months left to go. If you think American airline passengers have suddenly decided to sing Kumbaya with one another, think again.
It's no coincidence that a dramatic downtick in the amount of unruly airliner passenger complaints this year coincides with the World Health Organization declaring an end to the three-year-long Covid public health emergency on May 5th, 2023. With annoying restrictions and controversial mask mandates now finally beginning to ease, it appears that airline passengers flying domestically over the U.S. have finally begun to relax during their journeys. But of course, other nagging issues like youths vaping in-flight, mistreatment of flight attendant staff, and sexual misconduct of crewmembers and other passengers continue to bedevil the industry.
As many as 270 severe cases of in-flight misconduct have been passed over to the FBI between September 2021 and April 2023. Albeit not at quite the ferocious rates that they were during the peak of the recent global health crisis. As for whether these significant downtrends will stay as they are is another can of worms entirely. Though health crisis restrictions are gone, more frequent flight cancelations and general chaos at America's major airports could lead to a new round of spikes in reports.
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