FAA fines against unruly passengers reach $1 million as hostile incidents disrupt travel

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A man on a JetBlue plane threw his luggage at other passengers and put his head up a flight attendant’s skirt. On a different JetBlue flight, a woman refused to wear a mask, shouted obscenities at the crew and punched a passenger. A man flying Southwest assaulted fellow passengers because someone would not change seats. All these alleged incidents — and many more — happened on flights to or from Orlando this year.

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FAA fines against unruly passengers reach $1 million as hostile incidents disrupt travel

By TIFFINI THEISEN

ORLANDO SENTINEL |

AUG 27, 2021 AT 5:30 AM

 

 

FILE -- Travelers board a Jet Blue flight from Orlando International Airport in Orlando, Fla., to Washington Reagan Airport, on March 1, 2021. The Federal Aviation Administration said it had fielded 1,300 complaints of unruly passengers since February 2021, the same number of enforcement actions it took against passengers in the past decade. (Erin Schaff/The New York Times)

 

A man on a JetBlue plane threw his luggage at other passengers and put his head up a flight attendant’s skirt.

On a different JetBlue flight, a woman refused to wear a mask, shouted obscenities at the crew and punched another passenger.

A man flying Southwest Airlines assaulted fellow passengers because someone in his row would not change seats to accommodate his travel partner.

All these alleged incidents — and many more — happened on flights to or from Orlando this year.

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Civil penalties against unruly airline passengers nationwide have climbed past $1 million in 2021, according to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The agency says it has received 3,988 reports of unruly passengers so far this year.

Nearly three in four of these incidents — 2,928 — involve passengers refusing to wear face masks against the spread of COVID-19.

On Tuesday, the FAA published a video featuring the sounds of some of the chaos in the cabins, along with audio of pilots and air-traffic controllers discussing how to handle various tense and violent situations.

“Unruly behavior doesn’t fly,” the video’s tagline reads.

In January, the FAA announced a zero-tolerance policy in which unruly passengers no longer get warnings or second chances. Cases go right to enforcement.

The federal agency can only levy civil penalties. Criminal charges are up to local law enforcement agencies.

Fines for refusing to wear a mask are typically $9,000, but other passengers with a pile-up of offenses face penalties in the tens of thousands of dollars.

On August 19, the agency said it is seeking another $531,545 in civil penalties against the latest batch of 34 unruly passengers.

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The same announcement listed details of some of the more dramatic incidents aboard commercial airliners this year.

The alleged luggage-thrower who took an Orlando-bound JetBlue Airways flight from New York City on May 24 also refused to stay seated and lay on the floor in the aisle. He was placed in flexi-cuffs and the flight made an emergency landing in Richmond, Virginia, said the FAA, which seeks a $45,000 penalty against him.

A $25,500 fine is sought against a passenger on a March 11 Frontier Airlines flight from Orlando to Providence, Rhode Island, after she was accused of repeatedly kicking the aircraft bulkhead, screaming obscenities at the passenger next to her, throwing corn nuts at passengers and shoving both her middle fingers in a flight attendant’s face, and other violations.

In one incident in April, Allegiant Airlines crew members say, a passenger on a flight from Fort Lauderdale to Covington, Kentucky, wouldn’t wear a mask and urinated on the lavatory floor, which leaked into the galley area.

Several other incidents on flights across the country involved passengers drinking alcohol they brought on board, vaping, damaging airline equipment, yelling obscenities at and/or assaulting crew members or fellow passengers, and threatening bodily harm.

In February, one man yelled “imagine all of you in body bags” at a flight attendant as he was being yanked off an Orlando-to-Pittsburgh Allegiant Air flight for disruptive arguments with his wife and a fight attendant, the FAA said.

FAA officials say alcohol is fueling some of the problems and wants airport concessionaires to stop selling liquor in to-go containers, the Los Angeles Times reported this month.

 

 

Tiffini Theisen

Orlando Sentinel