Photo: Daniel Slim/AFP (Getty Images)
Federal agencies don’t joke about their zero-tolerance policy toward unruly passengers on commercial flights. Yesterday, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced its two largest-ever fines on individual passengers. The exact amounts of the two fines are $81,950 and $77,272. So far this year, the FAA has ordered $2 million in fines.
The $81,950 fine was imposed on a passenger on an American Airlines flight July 7, 2021 from Dallas-Fort Worth, Texas to Charlotte, North Carolina. According to the FAA, the passenger fell down the aisle of the plane and threatened the flight attendant, who offered to help her. She pushed the attendant out of the way and tried to open the cabin door. Even after two flight attendants grabbed her, “she spat, hit her head, bit and tried to kick the crew and other passengers.”
The $77,272 fine was imposed on a passenger on a Delta Air Lines flight July 16, 2021 from Las Vegas to Atlanta. This passenger tried to “kiss and hug” another passenger who was sitting next to her. She then left her seat and attempted to exit the plane mid-flight. As with the American Airlines flight, the passenger had to be tied up.
In addition to the bite, both incidents involved passengers attempting to open the aircraft’s cabin doors. You would be happy to know that it is physically impossible for a passenger to open the doors. During the flight, the cabin doors in the cockpit are locked. Even the relatively heavy doors are essentially nailed down at cruising altitude by the difference in air pressure between the cabin and the outside.
If you are on a flight and someone starts smashing a window, stop that passenger immediately by any means necessary. The windows are probably the weakest point on an airplane that a passenger alone could endanger. But you didn’t hear that from me.