Delta CEO Ed Bastian: Why we need a national no-fly list

[marmar]

(WaPo opinion piece) As the nation transitions to a “new normal” of managing the virus and as the airline industry gears up to accommodate the influx of passengers, it’s critical that we have all the tools available to mitigate in-flight misconduct.

That is why I have proposed that any person convicted of a crime because of an onboard disruption be added to a national, comprehensive “no-fly” list of unruly passengers.

Like other airlines, Delta maintains its own no-fly list for anyone who disrupts onboard safety or refuses to comply with crew instructions. But unfortunately, we’ve seen cases in which unruly passengers have simply switched airlines and continued to fly even after endangering flight safety. While each airline can take initiative and do its part, only a comprehensive list overseen by the federal government can close the loopholes and prevent disrupters from flying.

You’ve likely seen the videos that tell the story — they usually feature an airline passenger disrupting a flight; disregarding flight attendants, pilots and airport agents; and sometimes verbally and even physically assaulting crew members or other passengers.

While these cases are rare, representing a tiny fraction of overall flights, there’s no question that they have increased over the past two years. On Delta, the rate of incidents with unruly passengers has risen nearly 100 percent since 2019. These events can result in injuries, flight diversions, lengthy delays, and, for the perpetrators, arrest and prosecution. ...........(more)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/02/22/why-we-need-national-no-fly-list/

[Cha]

1. Well Yeah! Why should they

waste Time & Money Flying Back passengers who are Breaking the RULES!

Zero Tolerance

[LetMyPeopleVote]

2. We need vaccine passports and to exclude/shun assholes who refuse to be vaccinated

We need a national no fly list for assholes who act up on planes

Link to tweet

But let’s not forget about flight attendants and other airline personnel. Reports of “air rage” incidents have become increasingly common, often as a result of passengers being told to wear masks protections to prevent the spread of Covid-19.

To quantify matters, the Federal Aviation Administration received nearly 6,000 reports of unruly passengers last year, more than 70 percent of which were mask-related. The number of FAA investigations into these incidents was six times higher in 2021 than in 2020, and seven times higher than in 2019, before the global pandemic began in earnest......

The GOP senators said they “strongly condemn any violence towards airline workers,” but a federal no-fly list for those who lashed out on airplanes over mask policies “would seemingly equate them to terrorists who seek to actively take the lives of Americans and perpetrate attacks on the homeland.”

The Republican group — Wyoming’s Cynthia Lummis, Utah’s Mike Lee, Oklahoma’s James Lankford, Florida’s Marco Rubio, North Dakota’s Kevin Cramer, Texas’ Ted Cruz, North Dakota’s John Hoeven, and Florida’s Rick Scott — added that the Transportation Security Administration “was created in the wake of 9/11 to protect Americans from future horrific attacks, not to regulate human behavior onboard flights.”

Their letter went on to say that including such people on a no-fly list would “result in a severe restriction on the ability of citizens to fully exercise their constitutional right to engage in interstate transportation.”

The assholes who act up planes should be banned from flying

[speak easy]

3. I wanna hear what the Omicron CEO has to say.