Stopping Bad Behavior On Airplanes

The airline industry has been feeling more and more pains lately. That would be from the "pain in the ass" passengers who threaten the safety, comfort and welfare of those passengers that are civil and polite. The numbers of reported in-flight incidents has surged in recent years, and now the airlines want to stop it before it gets out of hand.  I think most people have personal stories of an ugly tempered, drugged or drunk passenger who made life uncomfortable for the flight stewards and other passengers and went on his or her merry way, unchallenged. Some passengers think that buying a ticket gives them a personal paradise on the plane, the freedom to act as if they were in their own living rooms.  I do hope the airlines put strict codes of behavior for the riders that include leaving the idiots at the gate.

Having written that, I think the airline industry itself has brought on much of the bad on board behavior. Unreasonably low ticket prices in recent years made flying a "democratic" event in which just about anyone (even the crazies, the uneducated and uncouth) can afford to fly. They do, and often many of them are uneducated in flight procedure. Thus they now more often behave badly.  The days of dressing in a suit and tie and making a sacrifice financially when buying a ticket for flying are over, and this has made airline flights hardly the proper event they used to be. Now, every slob can board and behave the same crass way he or she does on the streets back home.

Another reason the airlines have brought some of this unruly behavior on themselves is the ways in which they operate. Long waits at gates aggravate stressed passengers who have to search hours to find a flight that is available in this world of fewer and more crowded airplanes. While waiting for their take-off some head to the airport bar to drink too much alcohol before boarding. And those awful baggage checks and boarding procedures that seem to take forever aggravate even the most polite people. Putting passenger bodies in too small seats that are crammed so close that there is little aisle space in which to move about, not serving food on the flights, too many delays before and after boarding and a horde of other airline procedures make for more bad behavior on board.

In defense of the airline industry, society is more coarse now.  People are ruder and feel entitled to do whatever they wish, even when on board an aircraft. The "me, me, me" world seeps on board airlines too, and that is not compatible with flying safety. Thus, the decline in manners in society as a whole is reflected in the increase in bad passenger behavior. So the International Air Transport Association (IATA)  is calling for "a balanced package of measures" to battle the problem of passenger unrest on board.

Since 2010, there have been 20,000 unruly passenger incidents reported by airlines, according to IATA. But 8,000 thousand of those incidents (40% of all those reported since 2010)  came just last year. The IATA's definition for unruly behavior includes not obeying crew members, verbal confrontations, passenger refusal to take a seat or follow safety measures and sexual harassment. But there are other things you and I see on board that I would say were bad behavior related, not reported in the IATA stats. Among the things IATA says it wants are:

•Airline crews should be trained to help prevent or manage disruptive behavior from fliers, whether they're at check-in, the gate or onboard an aircraft.
•More help from airport employees, especially those in bars and restaurants, to keep fliers from ordering excessive amounts of alcohol prior to a flight. Government agreements to better determine which law enforcement agencies have jurisdiction in removing unruly behaving passengers.

I like the idea of the airlines attempts to regain control of the flights, which are now often out of control. Banning passengers from flying on an airline after bad behavior is a tool that needs to be used more often, and publicized so that passengers will know that there is a new sheriff in the airline world. They must know that flying is a privilege, not a right. That would be a pleasant bit of news for all of us who act respectfully on board.