Poll: Was The FAA Right To Render Harsh Penalties For Flight Disruptors?

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This week, the FAA announced harsh penalties for people disrupting commercial flights with their oh-so-important bad behavior. This week’s poll asks if you think the agency got the penalties right.

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11 COMMENTS

  1. There’s still a lot of people who plan, prepare, clean up then dress for travel. Unfortunately, too many Travelers today take it all for granite and no consideration for their fellow travelers who are sharing the same space. Being in the business of air travel, it’s sad to see so many that have unrealistic expectations.

    Every time I look out the window at the vast challenging terrain and Oceans. I remember all the stories of the Wagon Trains, Sailing ships and Railroad adventures. Even the Model T Ford x-country stories are so nostalgic. How lucky we are today. Just read that there’s a ’16 hour’ flight from New York to Auckland, New Zealand. 100 years ago that trip would have been a great adventure with a lot of planning and health considerations.

  2. When the airlines started to cater to the Jerry Springer crowd, what did they expect? People to start playing nice? My suggestion would be to make commercial airlines entirely first class, charge said rates, fly with fewer passengers, and take away the booze.

  3. I’ve been saying for years… LOCK THEM UP.
    Violence on any flight is an attempt at taking over control of the flight from the crew.
    10 years is to little for anyone attacking a crew member. And that is what every employee on an aircraft is… a crew member. I would go so far as to say it extends to the gate attendants and ground crew.
    Make the sentences very very public… even in ads.

  4. Years ago, as a BA B757 Captain seconded to a now defunct charter airline using a BA airplane with a charter cabin crew, MAN (Manchester UK) to PMI(Palma Majorca Spain) with a 230 pax and 6 female attendants. After check in a group of some 20 youngish male pax had opened their duty free liquor bottles and had become raucous and unruly. My 6 girls were concerned that this behaviour would become worse during our 3 hours flight. Problem solved, under the UK Air Navigation Order pax are prohibited from boarding while under the influence of drink, or are likely to become so in flight. Despite dispatchers dismay I offloaded the offenders, much to the relief of my crew and all the other pax. Charterer later sent a letter to all Club 18-39 members stating that if denied boarding they would lose their holiday, and if denied boarding on return that would have to find their own way home. Drunken behaviour ceased from then on.

  5. If people refuse to behave in a civil manner and in accordance with the rules (conditions of continued travel), then metaphorically speaking, hit them over the head with a bat. You don’t change behavior with penalties that are merely inconvenient, you need to make it really hurt. Our society at large is proving that we aren’t as civilized as we would like to think we are.

    • Why does it have to be “then metaphorically speaking,”? Similes are so much more effective!
      Beat him like a filthy rug!

  6. Makes me long for days gone by when I flew as a passenger in the late 1950s and onward to today. What a change! Back then flying was an adventure and everyone was well behaved. Today, I bite the bullet and fly business class or first class just to avoid most of the bad behavior.

  7. Years ago a first class passenger on a major carrier became intoxicated, when the F/A shut him off he went to the galley and took whatever he wanted. The F/A called the Capt. who came back to the galley to try to get the passenger under control. The passenger was a black belt and beat the living crap out of the Capt. who was out cold on the galley floor. The F/O landed the acft. Two years later the case went to court and the black belt received a $ 2500 fine. Both the Capt. and F/A are personal friends.

  8. Treat them as a hijack… squawk 7500 and let the charges stand… yes, they are attempting to take over control from the crew.
    After a decade or so in prison they will never fly again.

    • P.S. I blame the airlines for this. If they let the captains really be captains… the captain should charge the offenders the second they disregard the crew as hijackers.
      I would even make it a warning during the pre boarding announcement.
      I think the airlines are preventing proper conduct… sue the airline if you are a passenger. The airlines can stop this, but choose not too. So, they are 100% liable.

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