Air Industry Facing Continued Threats as Peak Holiday Travel Period Arrives

Houston, TX (WorkersCompensation.com) – Airlines and air industry employees continue to face threats as the busiest periods of the holiday travel season nears.

Since 2021, the airline industry has seen a rash of threatening and/or violent behavior from passengers. The Federal Aviation Administration said it has received 1,994 reports of unruly behavior as of Dec. 15, 2024. That number is below the high of nearly 6,000 incidents in 2021, but still well above the pre-pandemic high of just over 1,100 in 2019.

In 2021, the FAA issued a zero-tolerance policy for unruly behavior, and promised tougher standards and more prosecutions for attacks on flight crew members. In 2023, the FAA saw 2,075 incidents and levied more than $7.5 million in fines for bad passenger behavior.

Still the threats keep coming.

On Dec. 12, an FAA employee was attacked near the Hooks Airport in Houston. Officials with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office said they were investigating the attack.

According to law enforcement, the FAA employee was part of a maintenance crew working on airport lighting. The assailant approached the men with a gun and threatened to kill one employee before beating the FAA employee in the head with the pistol.

After the initial attack, the assailant fled the scene, but came back within an hour and opened fire on two other employees, shooting at least 20 shots at them as the stood near a tower. Officials said the 911 dispatcher heard the shots being fired in the background.

The FAA employee, who was not identified, suffered minor injuries and was taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. None of the shots fired struck any of the other employees.

Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said the assailant was later arrested at their residence and that they appeared to be in the middle of a mental health crisis.

Thomas said the employees were incredibly lucky.

"They need to go to church on Sunday. One employee was standing behind his vehicle or was divine intervention," Thomas said. “(The assailant) was making some strange and weird comments. He was acting very erratic."

No other injuries were reported.

Other incidents on flights to Los Angeles and Atlanta saw passengers engage in violent outbursts. 

On a November Delta flight from Paris, France to Atlanta, authorities diverted to deal with an unruly passenger. According to a statement from Delta, Flight 83 landed in Dublin, Ireland for the passenger to be removed. Delta did not give any details from the incident. Other than to say the passenger became unruly.

Recently, Irish airline RyanAir announced it would also take a zero tolerance policy to unruly behavior and wanted that any passengers who disrupt lights will face consequences. The announcement comes after a passenger on the airline traveling to Athens was convicted of refusing to follow crew instructions. The passenger received a five month suspended sentence and fined 400 Euros.

“The safety and well-being of our passengers and crew is RyanAir’s number one priority and we operate a strict zero tolerance policy to try to eradicate unruly behaviour onboard our aircraft,” the airline said in a statement.

On a November United flight from Austin to Los Angeles, passengers helped flight attendants restrain another passenger who stood up in a seat and repeatedly kicked it, as well as destroying a plastic tray. One passenger said they assisted flight attendants zip tie the man and restrain him seat belt him to the seat. United said the man was arrested when the plane landed at LAX and has been banned from all future flights on the airline.

Flight attendants and other crew members have asked the airlines and federal officials to step up and protect them in their workplaces.

In 2021, a national survey by the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, AFL-CIO (AFA) of nearly 5,000 flight attendants found that over 85 percent of all respondents had dealt with unruly passengers, and more than half (58 percent) had experienced at least five incidents in 2021.

“This survey confirms what we all know, the vitriol, verbal and physical abuse from a small group of passengers is completely out of control, and is putting other passengers and flight crew at risk,” Sara Nelson, then-president of AFA-CWA, said at the time. “This is not a ‘new normal’ we are willing to accept. We know the government, airlines, airports, and all stakeholders can take actions together to keep us safe and flying friendly.”

Airlines have played with the idea of creating a master list of passengers convicted of attacks against flight crew members to ban them from all air travel. That move has yet to gain any traction, but airlines have begun to ban passengers individually when they are involved in incidents of unruly behavior.

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