The CEO of American Airlines, Doug Parker, said “this type of behavior has to stop.” And he’s not wrong, caveats of what happened and why notwithstanding. The allegation is that a first class passenger on a flight from JFK Airport to Santa Ana punched a flight attendant twice in the face.
Why this happened is unclear. Maybe it was that the flight attendant bumped him (and apologized), or maybe she said “let’s go, Brandon.” Maybe it was something else entirely. Whatever it was, it provides no excuse for his assault, even though punching people with whom you have a difference of opinion has become all the rage.
Have airline passengers become more violent? More unruly? It would appear so, although it’s unclear whether there are more incidents happening or they are now more likely to be caught on video and thus make it appear more prevalent. But violence is one thing and unruly is quite another.
If a passenger commits a crime on an airplane, it’s no less a crime at 35,000 feet than on the ground. They get arrested upon landing and prosecuted for their conduct, just as would anyone else who is alleged to commit a crime. And if true that people have become more prone to violence on planes, whether because of the long delays, overbearing and arrogant staff or legroom, it remains unacceptable to use violence as a means of expressing disapproval. But the assault can be addressed just as any other assault.
The Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttiegieg, has embraced the syllogism* rather than the legal system as the easier fix.
Buttiegieg said that it is “completely unacceptable to mistreat, abuse, or even disrespect flight crews,” adding that flight attendants “have been on the frontlines of the pandemic from day one.”
Notably, cops have also been on the frontlines of the pandemic from day one, but they haven’t fared particularly well of late. But I digress.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on Sunday that a federal no-fly list for violent airplane passengers should be evaluated.
On the table is a no-fly list. People love lists unless, of course, they or their loved ones are on it. While Buttigieg uses the word “violent,” it’s being represented as “unruly” as in the video, and given the breadth of what “violence” means to many, this does not seem much of a stretch.
Assuming violence means actual physical violence, would this refer to people who are convicted of a crime of violence on an airplane, or a person who is deemed violent by a flight attendant? In the past, the terrorism no-fly list was rife with names put there without cause, some just to pay back people who annoyed an agent and others who had the misfortune of having similar names. And then there were some who an agent decided might be sympathetic to a cause and, well, might as well put ’em on a list because better safe than sorry. It was a fiasco.
But if violent means “unruly,” whether because of arguing with a flight attendant who demands that their 2-year-old not remove their mask or for reasons even less irrational, who’s to say that the flight attendant was in the right and the passenger, for whom transit appeared as a charge on their credit card, didn’t have reason to question the demand?
It’s understandable that airlines would publicly support their staff as against the public. But it’s also understandable that members of the public who have paid for the courtesy of boarding a plane expect to be treated with some degree of courtesy and fairness as well. Granted, the days of stews saying “fly me” are behind us, but that doesn’t make flight attendants Solomonic in their demands of passengers either. Nor does it mean that passengers are entitled to argue over the rules of passage, such as wearing masks if that’s what the airline requires.
While the ability to fly is legally a privilege and not a right, so that no one can assert that they have been denied their right to fly by the creation of such a list or their placement on it, the inability to fly is a huge burden, one that can impact a significant aspect of one’s life and employment. Being placed on a no-fly list is no small thing. This is not the sort of remedy that should be taken lightly or flippantly instituted because one guy on AA punched a flight attendant.
Would it be left to flight attendants to decide who gets put on a no-fly list? Are they the people in whom we want to repose that level of trust that people’s lives could be severely impacted? Would it be limited to people who commit crimes of violence, who are already subject to arrest and prosecution, whereupon their conduct will be adjudicated like anyone else alleged to have committed a crime, or will it be for whatever conduct pisses off a flight attendant?
This behavior must stop, and aggressive enforcement and prosecution of the law is the best deterrent.
Buttigieg’s tough “law and order” stance is hardly new in politics, and people who commit assault on airplanes have now joined the disfavored defendants to fill up those jail cells emptied when the last generation’s tough “law and order” politicians’ targets were rehabilitated as victims. Nothing new here.
But having the accusations against a person, whether on the ground or in a plane, adjudicated in a court with the full panoply of constitutional protections provided is very different than creating a no-fly list as a threat to make airline passengers behave as flight attendants deem appropriate and to ensure compliance with their every command.
*The syllogism:
Something must be done.
This is something.
This must be done.
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