The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has asked airport operators to help curb a sharp upswing in unruly passenger behavior during flights by discouraging restaurants in boarding areas from selling alcoholic beverages to go.
In a letter sent to the nation’s airport administrators, the FAA noted that federal regulations prohibit passengers from bringing open containers of alcoholic beverages onto a plane and downing the drinks while in flight. But “we have received reports that some airport concessionaires have offered alcohol ‘to go,’ and passengers believe they can carry that alcohol onto their flights or they become inebriated during the boarding process,” wrote FAA Administrator Steve Dickson.
He asked the administrators to discourage violations through the use of “signage, public service announcements, and concessionaire education.”
Dickson specifically suggested that airports show FAA-produced videos in their boarding areas to raise awareness of the agency’s zero tolerance of rowdy inflight behavior.
“Every week, we see situations in which law enforcement was asked to meet an aircraft at the gate following an unruly passenger incident,” Dickson wrote. “In some cases, flight attendants have reported being physically assaulted.”
The FAA said it recently levied fines totaling $531,545 against 34 individuals for misbehaving while onboard an aircraft. The incidents ranged from a passenger throwing things from his carryon luggage at fellow passengers and then putting his head up a flight attendant’s skirt, a situation that required the plane to make an emergency landing, to one individual’s threat upon arrival at a jetway to kill a flight attendant if she didn’t open the door to the flight deck so he could talk to the pilot.
Since Jan. 1, the agency has fielded 3,889 reports of passengers violating aviation rules. About 2,860 involved a refusal by a customer to meet a federal requirement that all passengers wear a mask while en route.
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