'Air rage' takes back seat in our post-9-11 world

By Michael McConnell

Despite a recent Federal Aviation Administration report showing incidents of air rage have dropped substantially in the past year, assaults on airline crews and other in-flight incidents remain common and under-reported, according to many industry experts.

As of June 26 (the most recent date for which FAA statistics are available), U.S. airlines reported 83 incidents of "unruly" passengers interfering with the duties of crewmembers. That's in contrast to the more than 300 such incidents reported annually in 1999, 2000 and 2001.

Some experts attribute the drop to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in New York and Washington and the subsequent willingness of many air travelers to be more tolerant of personal searches, delays and other inconveniences in the name of ensuring their safety.

Dawn Weeks, a spokeswoman for the Association of Flight Attendants, said she is hearing less about incidents of air rage from the union's 50,000 members.

"People have gotten a little nicer or a little more cognizant of their actions in an aircraft," Weeks said. "People are being a little more careful."

However, she added, since reporting air rage is voluntary and up to the individual crewmember, most occurrences - as happened before Sept. 11 - still go unreported.

"It's hard for us to know if air rage has gone up or down. We still don't have an accurate number," Weeks said.

In 2001, the union issued a report card on air rage that gave the FAA, Department of Justice and airline industry all a failing grade when it came to protecting flight attendants and passengers and discouraging air rage. The report cited frequent flight delays, cancellations and passengers' easy access to alcohol as among the causes of air rage.

Some studies have been even more critical. An investigation by USA Today last December found that air rage has been a problem aboard U.S. flights for more than a decade and that government officials have and generally disregarded the problem. FAA officials declined to press charges in most of the 1,500 cases reviewed by the newspaper.

A number of the cases cited by USA Today involved events similar to what occurred aboard the airplanes in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks: Between 1990 and 2000, an out-of-control passenger gained access to the cockpit, or at least tried to, on more than a dozen occasions.

The newspaper also said that on the rare instances when the FAA chose to press charges or fine the passenger, the punishment was minimal: In March 1997, an unruly man aboard a KLM airliner who had to be wrestled to the ground and handcuffed to his chair paid only a $100 fine.

FAA penalties for disrupting a flight can include 20 years in prison and up to a $25,000 fine. Former FAA Administrator Jane Garvey said the agency takes a "zero tolerance" attitude toward air rage.

"Flight crewmembers are critical to the safety and security of the skies and the flying public," Garvey said. "Unruly passenger behavior cannot be tolerated."

Some airline industry critics also charge that the real number of air rage incidents could be more than 30 times the FAA's official figures. In his book "Air Rage: Crisis in the Skies," author Andrew Thomas documents more than 10,000 cases.

"These things are happening thousands of times a year," Thomas said. "There's no doubt about it."

Thomas' figures include incidents that he said the FAA does not count, such as security breaches at airports or attempts by intoxicated passengers to board airplanes. The Ohio resident said he even believes air rage played a role in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

The hijackers were well aware that people who broke into the cockpit of U.S. airplanes were rarely prosecuted, and that pilots routinely left the cockpit to try to personally calm angry passengers, Thomas said.

"Unless it was a really bad incident, the philosophy was to just keep him quiet and get him off the plane and move on to your next flight," he said.

"The problem is these incidents are still not dealt with in a consistent manner."

But since now it may be very difficult to determine the difference between a passenger who is acting up and who could be a potential terrorist, such an attitude is something that the FAA, airlines, pilots, and flight attendants all say they are no longer willing to accept.

Many pilots are calling for the right to carry concealed weapons in the cockpit to better protect themselves and passengers. The flight attendants union is lobbying Capitol Hill for uniform safety training standards among other improvements, saying most airlines currently give the bare minimum - less than three hours in most cases.

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