Malfeasance, Malfeesance Aflight: Overruling the Unrulies.📌

+ Doggone Dilemma.

Getting Testy.

(3/14/24)—Will they ever learn? Namely a student pilot who attempted to storm the cockpit of a recent cross-country flight. One Nathan Jones, 19, boarded Alaska Airlines Flight 322 in San Diego, a 737-900 bound for Washington D.C., and was seated at 6E—but not for long.

Later claiming he was somehow “testing them”, Jones jumped up three different times, attempting to breach the security locked cockpit door in mid air—to where ‘stews’ blocked the flight deck entrance with a beverage cart. Two off-duty law enforcement officers eventually subdued the miscreant, flex cuffing, then sandwiching him by sitting to either side of his now middle seat.

Upon landing at Washington’s Dulles International Airport, Jones was sequestered by ground authorities, whence he produced his student pilot’s license and revealed he lived with his mother in Virginia. A search of his luggage found no weapons nor contraband, but various notebooks and manuals on takeoffs, inflight operation/techniques and landings.

With no priors or signs of intoxication, the frustrated flyboy’s mental health came into question. Nevertheless he was arrested on charges of interference with a flight crew and remains in custody, facing up to 20 years in federal prison. Lesson learned or no, this latest onboard disturbance brings 2024’s (US) unruly passenger report total to 2,075 thus far.

For this one looks to be less an aviation test case than another deviating airhead case, making this little flyer dangerous all the more. (MTC…)

More Fights on Flights (F.O.F.s).

(2/22/24)—Consider passengers beating up fellow passengers, another beating down emergency doors mid-flight, a third with beating and stabbing paranoia:

Punch Drunk. Take a case of fevered fisticuffs roiled a recent Southwest Airlines flight from California to Hawaii as an unclassy coach rider stood up in the aisle and unloaded on a near-row window seat passenger, who was apparently already loaded and harassing the upstanding passenger’s family. The pounder landed several right crosses to the drunk’s face before flight attendants and yet other passengers pulled him off. Both men were reportedly arrested upon landing in Kauai. Aloha!     

Escape Catch. Soon enough, another bozo on an American Air flight 1219 to Chicago from Albuquerque had to be restrained and flexi-cuffed by six fellow passengers after attempting to push a handle to open the rear cabin emergency door shortly after takeoff, screaming “I wanted to get out!” Upon returning to Albuquerque, he was said to be detained briefly, but no charges were filed. Bummer trip nevertheless.

Pen-Knived. Then there was the ‘fidgety’ maniac on Alaska Airlines Flight from Seattle to Las Vegas January 24 who suddenly reached across the aisle to commence punching a man traveling with his wive and seven-year-old son, then stabbing him with a pen-knife weapon ( two rubber banded ballpoint pens), also striking his wife.

Subdued by flight attendants, this paranoid perp claimed the victim he’d jabbed about his right eye was ‘mafia with the cartel’ who was following him. “I planned to attack and kill him,” said the Mexican asylum seeker, who was flexi-cuffed and subdued until the plane hit Vegas, where he was arrested for assault. Curiously enough, the victim, who suffered ugly scratches and bruises, was in fact an off-duty law enforcement officer, yet nowhere near working the immigration beat, much less a being ‘made’ man.

So all things considered, we gotta be real careful up there…

 Legislating, Legroom to Leg Irons.

(4/23/23+)—Fed up with air rage and myriad other onboard malevolence like the recent ‘spoon’ attack☟, US lawmakers are pushing a bill that would create a new federal no-fly list for unruly airline passengers.

Themed “bad behavior should not fly”, their recent Congressional hearing had flight attendants and other crew members declaring that “…violent incidents have not stopped…(and) strong penalties are needed to curb such violent and unacceptable behavior.”

Such a list would banish miscreants from boarding commercial flights nationwide, allowing the TSA to determine the length of the ban, while the bill affords guidelines for notifying people that they are being listed, and how to appeal the action.

The measure was introduced jointly by Senator Jack Reed (D-RI), Representatives Eric Swalwell (D-CA) and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-TN), and backed by the Airline Pilots Assn. (ALPA), various transportation unions, and American, Delta and Southwest Airlines.

This, as unruly incidents did decline in 2022, primarily due to the judicial sunsetting of COVID mask requirements. Still, serious incidents triggering federal investigation remained five times higher than pre-pandemic numbers—including the recent punch drunk who attacked a United Airlines flight attendant over exit row seating.

Alofty Second Act?

The proposed list would post separately from the current FBI-run ‘no-flyer’, which is more tasked with preventing suspected terrorism types from boarding airplanes. Incidentally, airlines already maintain their own dishonor rolls of passengers they’ve banned; although they typically don’t share names with one another for fear of being accused of crossing anti-competitive cooperation laws.

But here is essentially a reintroduction, for the bill is a return flight of the “Protection From Abusive Passengers Act”—bipartisan legislation from 2022 that never got off the ground—with the notion that its chances are better today. PFAPA sought to let the TSA ban offenders convicted or fined for assaulting or in any way interfering with aircraft crew members.

Keying on violence in the skies, it sought to protect frontline crew/aviation workers and passenger alike from physical abuse, harassment—let alone particularly unacceptable hostility such as spitting, kicking, biting, and worse (like wielding lethal vamp straws). The goal being to minimize disruptions, maximize air travel safety—hewing to Airline Passenger Bill of Rights’ (2021) concerns, from seating comfort to inflight security.

Nevertheless, not to be spoon fed are civil libertarians who view such a list as short on transparency and potentially over targeting people of color, say through profiling and data predicting. The opposition echoed the decline in 2022’s unruly behavior cases, and that the FAA is already cracking down hard on ‘malies’ as it is. Indeed, the ACLU holds that “…if Congress wants to further reduce air-rage incidents on aircraft, it should look at forcing the airlines to make flying a less miserable experience.”

All things considered, the Goldilocks zone could be rooting out the abusers without abusing the ratings. So we’ll see how far this latest measure flies, or how fast it crashes—whether airline passengers and crew can finally jettison the inflight panic attacks and aisle scrums, confident there will be no more onboard ‘spooning’ anytime soon. (MTC…)

Gag ‘Em With a Spoon?

(3/6/23)—The latest airborne crazoid attempting a premature withdrawal: One Francisco Severo Torres, a bearded, 33-year-old Masshole, began freaking out on Sunday’s United Airlines Flight 2609 from L.A. to Boston.

Apparently fearful a flight attendant threatened to kill him, Torres leapt from his coach seat, heading for the plane’s forward galley—which essentially separated first-class from economy—muttering that he wanted out. Some 45 minutes short of Logan International Airport, FAs spotted him entering the galley, attempting to jigger its emergency door, moving a handle 1/4^th of the way toward unlocking, basically disarming the safety lever.

This only set off a cockpit alarm, whereby the ‘stews’, blocking off their first-class section, approached the nutjob to re-secure that starboard side door before reporting to the captain. Torres asked them if any cameras had caught him in the act, heatedly retreating to his aisle seat, then storming into a rear cabin bathroom.

He soon emerged, armed with the stem of a metal spoon he’d broken, rushing back up the center aisle toward that forward galley—madly pacing, screaming that he wanted to kill everybody on the plane, women and children first. Suddenly lunging at the flight attendants, ‘Spooner’ viciously stabbed one in the neck three times with the jagged handle, fortunately only hitting his uniform’s shirt collar.

Swiftly subdued and zip-tied by a half-dozen crew and fellow passengers (albeit in a furious scrum), Severo was arrested upon landing at Boston’s Logan Airport, charged with attempted interference with flight crew members and using a dangerous weapon. The maniac faces a maximum life behind bars and $250k fine.

So Flight 2609’s flight attendants and passengers deplaned without further incident or significant injuries. But the  ordeal does raise some questions: Among them, where were federal air marshals when they were needed the most?

Moreover, when are these inflight madmen going to tragically ‘jump the carts’? And must we passengers be ever prepared to jump such jerk-offs before they do?

For the Red-Ass Record.

4/10/22—Lessee, unhappy with the state of airline service, vote with your feet, right? Naw, vote with your fist, or boot, your yellowed incisors or nose-pickin’ fingernails. For that’s what several of the latest lunkheads have done, landing thousands of dollars in FAA fines for their efforts.

Sure, storm the counter, right hook the ground agent; rush the cabin or cockpit door—bash the hell out of any carrier crew and staffers daring to stand in your way—go biting, kicking and screaming into the arms of air marshals or local authorities. That’ll fix ’em, alright, bro—way to get your way…uh-huh…

More specifically, for the record: Some angry lout, who had already been removed from a Southwest Airlines flight in Atlanta, recently raged toward the Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport ticket counter. He proceeded to sucker punch the SWA agent before being arrested by ATL police and charged with battery/obstruction. So Southwest scanned a hot mess of video and banned the violent unruloid from its flights for the rest of his miserable life.

Then an American Airlines passenger en route from Texas to North Carolina fell into the plane’s center aisle, whereupon a flight attendant came to her aid. Instead the woman allegedly pushed the PA away and wildly attempted to open the cabin door. As several attendants tried to restrain her, she hit one in the head, then “…spit at, headbutted, bit and tried to kick the crew and other passengers”, according to FAA reports. Her just reward: a record $81,950 FAA fine for threatening, harming a flight attendant.

In an even lovelier case, a woman on a Delta flight from Vegas to the ATL was apparently wont to “hug and kiss the passenger seated next to her,” the agency charged, “(before walking) to the front of the aircraft to try to exit during flight; (then) refused to return to her seat; and bit another passenger multiple times.” The unnamed canoodler’s payoff: a faceplanting FAA fine of $77, 272, due and payable as well.

Since issued in January, the FAA’s ‘zero-tolerance’ policy has netted over $7m in air rage fines. On the brighter side, neither of two above cases appeared to be COVID/mask related. Although all three add to the over 7,000 disruptive incidents to date—70% of which have been rooted in masking rules (coming up for D.O.T. review, extended until May 3), yet are in modest decline as of late.

Not that this will necessarily deter such unruly A-holes from winging punches or puckering up anytime soon. But there’s always dop…er, hope. (MTC…)

Time to Overrule the Unrulies.

2/13/22—New year, yet new fears…

The latest: Pot Head Going Down. Sounds like the latest unruly snake acted up against the wrong crew and ‘stew’ on the wrong plane this time around. American Airlines flight 1775, en route from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., diverted to Kansas City (MO) International Airport today after a passenger began storming the cockpit door. The Airbus A321 was met by local law enforcement and the FBI, where the perp was taken into custody, as a “passenger interfering with a flight crew.” Yet the real newsy story was told by more deplaning passengers. Once the disruption ensued, flight attendants turned up the cabin lights in alarm. But precious moments before more people could rush the forward aisle to hold this latest air rager down, another stew had slowed his roll by braining him with a coffee pot. In retrospect, some exasperated, rescheduled passengers saw the incident as striking a blow for high planes’ justice, others simply called it a case of caffeine karma—if the headcase even knew what hit him.

This, after Delta Airlines 86ed two unruly passengers from its Fort Lauderdale-to-Atlanta Flight 1582 little over a week ago, the carrier fired off a letter to the US Department of Justice, pressing for a “national, comprehensive no-fly list” that would in effect ban convicted disruptive offenders from “traveling on any other commercial carrier.” Delta’s letter cited having already put some 1,900 passengers on its “no-fly” list and reporting over 900 of its banned names to the TSA for civil penalties—mainly over masking noncompliance. It also called for aviation partners to share their N-F lists and crew/staff reports to better bar such found-guilty miscreants from any commercial flight, at a time when Delta’s unruly/disruptive incidents are logging 100% over those in 2019. All of which does raise the question of fairness and accuracy, of due ‘unruly’ process issues Vamigré  of will cover in due course going forward.

In any case, this action follows an American Airlines 777 jetliner bound from Miami to London two weeks ago that reversed course little more than an hour and 500 miles out over the Atlantic. Then came a similar unruly passenger-caused turnaround—some three hours into a United Airlines flight 90 bound for Tel Aviv, Israel from Newark Liberty Airport—and back again, to waiting police authorities.

The problems: Further anti-mask turmoil (what else?) and the disruptions that ensue—namely, another passenger, in first class this time, refusing to mask up as per federal requirements. Flight 38, with 129 passengers and 14 crewsers, returned to Miami International Airport without injuries, where the wide-body plane was met by Miami authorities—London run being cancelled from there.

The tally: In the prop wash of a record, bruisingly noxious 2021 (nearly 6k such incidents, some 70% mask-related), FAA data shows that 2022 has already logged 499 unruly passenger reports, 324 of them mask cases, with 80 formal investigations and 4 enforcement actions. Further, nearly 85% of flight attendants say they dealt with unrulies in 2021. This, despite the aviation agency’s current ‘zero-tolerance’ stance toward malign behavior onboard, wherein tsk-tsks and warnings give way straight to penalties—as in, steep fines and jail time. Still, the air rages on…

Nevertheless fear not, Vamigrés, for we shall oversee, overcome, and if necessary, overwhelm. (MTC…)

12/11/21—Black eyes, split lips, myriad bruising and facial lacerations: Ain’t that a kick in the teeth, or a fist, as the case may be. Which is what airline flight attendants are facing these days, along with all unmanner of physical and verbal abuse—with smiles on their faces, at that.

Well over 5,500 disruptive passenger incidents have been reported in 2021 thus far. Unprecedented levels of onboard vitriol and violence are prompting nearly a thousand investigations and fines approaching $40k in the extreme.

Flight or Fight?

So what’s the beef? Beyond skin tight economy class seating and unfare (if any) airline food, there is the matter of COVID masking (70%+ of dust-ups) and related vaccine/unVAXxed protocols. Some passengers are up in arms over masking Given Delta and now Omicron variants—made all the more a trigger point by many political and media leaders they follow. But given the very transmittable Delta and now Omicron variants, who knows what anybody is carrying besides their carry-ons any more?

Add in flight delay/cancellations stressors, and the cabin fever pitches sky high—at a time when passenger traffic is resurging to pre-pandemic volumes; and the crowded holiday season has just begun.

A Breath of Spiked Air.

Then stir in tumblers of alcohol, and serve hot or ice cold—rendering these flare-ups all the more animated—terminal gates to jetways to plane seating, row by row. Because excessive boozing can yield drunkards and other waisted hotheads acting out oddly and harshly in close cabin confines–witness that latest fightin’ drunkard on the recent LA-bound Delta flight. 

The FAA bans passenger imbibing of alcohol onboard that isn’t provided by the airlines themselves, and has asked carriers to limit or suspend booze sales in economy class (?!) altogether since early summer, 2021. So we best hold our liquor, even if it’s not our own, or next stop: pre-flight breathalyzers and walking on a straight aisle?

The Blaming of the Stew.

Indeed, what with today’s ever more cattle car packed jetliner cabins, a calm, secure space for air travelers calls for adhering to some basic behavioral rules. Mask and VAX issues aside, common courtesies surrounding tray tables and seatback-to-knee cap territory are deemed essential to safer, saner passage.

And charged with maintaining this onboard peace, balancing passenger ease and compliance are airline flight attendants—be they guys or gals. But while to most travelers, F/As are a symbol of aid and comfort, to certain measly macho morons and other manic airheads, they are the enemy.

Nevertheless, Beyond pillows, blankets and beverage carts, flight attendants are also fully trained in medical and CPR procedures, as first responders to handle onboard safety and health emergencies. And since 9/11 and UAL Flight 93 in Shanksville, PA, they constitute the last line of defense against inflight terrorism. But today’s ‘unruly disruptions’ can distract them, posing threats to passengers and crews with no safe means of escape. Moreover, ‘stews’ can be endangered and injured by manic outbursts in such close quarters—struck by raging brawlers swinging wildly, or bull rushing cockpit doors.

Increasingly, flight attendants are embroiled in these monumental fracases over mindless trivialities, worst case hand wrestling with the airheads in aisles and seat rows, being distracted from other dangers like coordinated air terror attacks. And too often, they are getting the worst of it; little wonder the TSA is offering F/As advanced self-defense training.

VamoShaming the New Abnormal.

No denying these unruly episodes can adversely affect carrier staff and us passengers by delaying take-offs or forcing a taxi return to the airport gate and authorities—making everybody a bit more anxious about air travel. So what about it? What if inane bickering over masks, seat belts, seatback kneejerking and overhead bins erupts into squabbles, fight clubbing or worse, to where our flight might be diverted, or not leave the boarding gate at all?

Flight attendants advise us fellow passengers to look for the warning signs of an unruly in the making: spot anger, slurs, rude, cursing outbursts, much less punching seatbacks or pounding tray tables in impatience or frustration. Otherwise, they say, don’t intervene ourselves, which could further inflame the situation—rather alert F/As, who are better prepared to tamp things down.

Is the ‘perp’ simmering, ranting next to us or in the same row? Stews recommend not pressing our call button, but rising and discretely approaching them with our concern—if not eye checking nearby passengers to press their service buttons—in any event, not just putting our heads down in despair.

But wait a sec, what if we passengers want to be more of the solution here, more than just sitting, shrinking ducks? How about we VamoSource row by row to, in effect, stage a ‘cabintervention’: one decidedly anti-vigilante in nature all right, but with cowering not allowed?

For instance, we could smartphone shoot the fatheads up en masse, shouting, chanting them down cabin wide, VamoSwarming row upon row without leaving our seats, collectively snuffing out any lamoid ‘rows’ before they grow. Seriously, just sayin’, but it’s a start—gotta be better than duct taping them to seats back by the aft lavs.

Can They Get a Witness?

Short of that, the FAA is getting heavier with their fines, even though many of the bad, unruly actors have pleaded that they don’t have the financial wherewithal to fully pay them.

Nevertheless, authorities federal to local are urging passengers to help the airlines and law enforcement by bearing testimony (and/or as a charging complainant) to what unruly incidents they have witnessed. Some jurisdictions are even offering to cover the expenses of those willing to come testify against the accused unrulies in legal proceedings.

All of which serves to underscore the message that face-to-face cooperation is far better than toe-to-toe confrontation every step along our way, flight attendants and all. So what say we start facing off against this unruly nonsense, let alone seeing to it we don’t end up being that raging loser duct taped to a coach seat or faceplanted in the aisle. (MTC…)

Target: Malfeasance to Malfeesance Aflight.

5/20/19—Let’s get real. It starts with the malfeesance aforeflight. That’s right, the ladling on of onerous, add-on bag, service and preferential seating/legroom fees—by the Big Four U.S. carriers and low-fare (and ultra-cheap) newbies alike.

This mandated feelty and the confusing, if not concealed information about them, impedes travel consumers’ efforts when attempting to compare basic advertised fares, as well as customized flight enhancements. The surreptitious online mining of travelers’ personal data by airlines’ and third-party booking/tix/reservations sites is another egregious issue entirely.

Comparing the feelty scourge is an inexorable shrinking of seat size and legroom as carriers wring more and more revenue per seat mile out of their cabins, or when agents/attendants shift preferred seating passengers at will, depriving passengers of the window or aisle seat they thought they had fee-paid for, in the arbitrary service of assigned-seating shell game and musical chairs. 

Too often, this is the bitter fruit of the overbooking bump and grind, the wanton overselling of seats on any given flight. The inventory hedging practice results in passengers being denied boarding on the flight they have paid for, with entirely too opaque voucher payouts and/or inconvenient alternate flights offered for their voluntary or involuntary bumping. And proposed compensation price bidding or ‘FlexSchedule’ early notification barely begins to address, much less remedy such bait and switch carrier schemes. So we will see about that too, now won’t we…

Malpractice In Extremis.

Totally, the most recent incidents of flagrant malpractice include that American Airlines flight attendant who grabbed the stroller of a boarding woman carrying 15 month-old twins. He yelled, ‘strollers were not allowed onboard’, taking it away from the startled mother just inside the cabin door.

She resisted, crying to where a fellow passenger rushed toward them to aid the woman and her toddlers. The flight attendant told him to butt-out, heatedly challenging the male passenger to ‘bring it on’—nearly striking one of the twins with a wave of his arm—the video going viral.

Yet it was the mother who was escorted off the plane to a different, later flight albeit with an upgrade to first class for her humiliation and inconvenience.

Still, the most grievous piece de resistance involved the literal dragging of a passenger who refused to give up his seat (to a United Airlines crew member!). The elderly doctor was injured as attendants and O’Hare airport security yanked him screaming down the center aisle that he had to return to his patients in Louisville—a horrifying video that also went way viral.

This Doctor Dao suffered a concussion, broken nose and lost two teeth in the ordeal. United has since admitted to gratuitous overbooking/overselling and involuntary removals, flawed customer service policies, and drawing in law enforcement officers to a customer disagreement. The airline has also upped bump compensation significantly (only upon public and congressional pressure)—reaching a settlement with the physician in the process.

But no doubt, this is not the last we will hear of such crew/staff mistreatment of their passengers. Pilots aside, airline employees are reputedly overstressed and underpaid—carriers having maintained from the early days that it is the price to pay for working in such a ‘lofty, glamorous industry’. Well, tell that to the harried flight attendant who recently died of a heart attack on one Hawaii-to-California run. Little wonder airline workers cherish their travel privileges—whereby they and family members can fly standby on carriers’ routes, paying only nominal fees and taxes. So valued are these perks, some strapped employees are known to sell or barter their precious tickets away, despite airlines’ policies and prohibitions. From here on, Vamigré will be all over such cross pressures, and we Vamigrés will get over on them, as well.

Class Warfare Aloft?

Moreover, such abuses are symptomatic of the airline industry’s sharp segmentation of preferred and economy passengers. While premium flyers are rewarded with an ever-pampering array of upgrade perks in first and business classes, economy travelers suffer through a steady cutting of even basis comforts and amenities.

That is, forget firm seat assignments or same-day changes/refunds, upgrades or rewards; overhead bin access or any but last group boarding. Then there are all those predatory fees.

Though industry sector analysts and T/T shills and pundits call this consumer imbalance ‘the new normal’, Vamigré will diligently monitor and strive to correct, counterract this unjust divergence, carrier by carrier, flight by flight, until we stop getting cheated, swindled, scammed and stolen from—until we get our day and due…

Jet2, Brute?

Two Royal Air Force Typhoon fighter jets recently scrambled to escort a British airliner back to North London’s Stansted Airport. 

And somebody’s going to pay, dearly.

Budget carrier Jet2 accuses one of its passengers of behavior so disruptive the flight crew had no choice but to return to the airport of origin.

“Aggressive, abusive, dangerous”: the airline’s CEO claimed that the obstruction and havoc were as serious as any Jet2 has ever experienced. This unruly conduct was said to include efforts to open the plane’s cabin doors in mid-flight over the North Sea. The crew and nearby seatmates finally subdued the young female passenger.

Once back on Stansted’s tarmac, the plane’s crew members welcomed police officers aboard to arrest the ‘perp’ on suspicion of assault, criminal damage—let alone endangering the entire aircraft.

Jet2 has since billed one Chloe Haines, 25, $106,000 for the cost of diverting the plane, and banned her from the airline for life. Whether she actually coughs it up is another issue entirely.

Now, although the carrier’s move may be unusual, instances of inflight passenger disruption have been on the increase—nearly 50,000 reported incidents between 2007 and 2015 alone.

So let’s zip up and chill with a decent sip and screen, shall we—at least until the wheels touch down. Otherwise this brutal Jet2 behavioral billing business may become S.O.P., if not yet another fee…