Airline Officials Want Stronger Penalties for Unruly Passengers

Airline officials and industry stakeholders are asking United States Attorney Merrick Garland to maximize penalties for unruly passengers, as the number of incidents on board airplanes skyrockets “out of control.”

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has already received nearly 3,100 reports of unruly passengers in less than six months already this year, ranging from arguments to physical confrontations – including one in which a flight attendant had two teeth knocked out.

The FAA has increased the number of fines it levies on such passengers, but airlines and airline unions say it’s not enough. They are asking Garland to begin criminally prosecuting the most egregious cases of passengers’ unruly behavior, according to TravelPulse’s sister publication Travel Weekly.

“Specifically, the federal government should send a strong and consistent message through criminal enforcement that compliance with federal law and upholding aviation safety are of paramount importance,” wrote the group of six unions and four trade organizations in a letter to Garland on June 21.

Unruly passenger behavior or interfering with flight attendant duties is against federal law.

“It’s out of control,” Paul Hartshorn, spokesman for the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, which represents American Airlines’ more than 20,000 cabin crew members, said in an interview with CNBC. “It’s really coming to the point where we have to defend ourselves.”

The letter’s signatories are the trade groups Airlines for America, which represents major U.S. carriers; the Regional Airline Association; and the National Air Carrier Association, which represents ultralow-cost carriers.

Union signatories are the Air Line Pilots Association, Allied Pilots Association, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, Association of Professional Flight Attendants, Southwest Airlines Pilots Association and Transport Workers Union of America. The Association of Professional Flight Attendants coalition, which lobbies on behalf of flight attendant unions, is the other signatory.

“Even if it doesn’t rise to the level of a physical altercation, just the constant bickering and name-calling and disrespect … that wears away at people,” Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, the largest flight attendant union with some 50,000 members, said.

Sen. Jack Reed, (D-Rhode Island) plans to introduce legislation before the end of this month “that would cover abusive passenger behavior on board flights” and against TSA officers, spokesman Chip Unruh told CNBC.