Lawmakers take up issue of recent bad plane behavior
WASHINGTON — High-profile incidents involving airline passengers insulting and attacking crew members or refusing to wear masks in defiance of federal requirements risk eroding public confidence in air travel, witnesses and lawmakers said Thursday during a hearing to examine the effects of unruly passengers on the aviation system.
Federal agencies have stepped up efforts to quash such behavior, but even as the Federal Aviation Administration said Thursday the rate of reported incidents has declined since the start of this year, it said such occurrences remain unacceptably high.
The hearing before the subcommittee on aviation is Washington’s latest response to a sharp rise in mask-related incidents and bad behavior on airplanes. It comes after stepped-up enforcement and increased fines, with lawmakers this week questioning whether changes have deterred conflicts.
On Thursday, Rep. Rick Larsen, D-Wash., chairman of the subcommittee, said incidents have put the safety of front line workers, passengers and the aviation system at risk.
“As the nation works to get to the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic, the surge in public air rage incidents has exacerbated the already-tenuous workforce situation in our aviation sector and eroded confidence in air travel,” he said.
Added Garret Graves of Louisiana, the top Republican on the subcommittee: “It needs to be a civil experience for everyone on the plane, and obviously there are additional safety considerations for being tens of thousands of feet up in the air in a metal airplane when thinking about this.”
The FAA said this week it has received 4,385 reports of unruly passenger incidents, most of which involve masks. The numbers have prompted both chambers on Capitol Hill to voice concerns about airplane behavior.
In separate letters sent to FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson and Attorney General Merrick Garland, Senate Transportation Committee Chair Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., and Judiciary Committee Chair Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said this week existing deterrent measures have been ineffective. They suggested that stiffer penalties, including criminal prosecution, should be used to reinforce a message that bad behavior is unacceptable — an approach that many at Thursday’s hearing endorsed.
The FAA said it has launched 789 investigations this year, more than double the number for 2019 and 2020 combined. The agency has begun enforcement actions in 162 cases and proposed more than $1 million in fines. About three-fourths of cases involve a passenger refusing to wear a mask.
The FAA said Thursday the number of incidents has fallen since the zero-tolerance policy launched but remains too high. As of last week, the agency said unruly passenger incidents were occurring about six times for every 10,000 flights. That’s a roughly 50% decline from earlier this year, but more than twice as high as the end of 2020.