'Air rage' cases are soaring

Passengers who fly out of McCarran International Airport this busy Fourth of July weekend may have more to worry about than long check-in lines, skimpy on-board snacks or lost luggage.

They may have to think about whether the guy sitting next to them is going to lose his cool at 30,000 feet.

Airlines around the world are reporting increased incidents of "air rage," the current buzzword for cases in which passengers turn belligerent -- and in some cases, violent -- in flight. Drunken, stoned or just fed up with delays, cramped space and stale cabin air, travelers are mentally snapping with no exit and no law enforcement around to protect travelers.

In the past few months, air travelers have been arrested around the country in connection with punching flight attendants, threatening fellow passengers and forcing planes to divert to the nearest airport.

Last weekend a Southwest Airlines plane bound for Los Angeles from Nashville, Tenn., put down in Albuquerque, N.M., after a 60-year-old man allegedly waved two pocketknives at flight attendants and other passengers. He was charged with aggravated assault, disorderly conduct and indecent exposure.

Air rage is "the single most pervasive security problem facing the industry worldwide," Stephen Luckey, chairman of the Airline Pilots Association's national security committee, told a congressional hearing on the topic last year.

It's difficult to measure how pervasive the problem is. The Federal Aviation Administration only keeps figures for the number of civil penalties it imposes on passengers who interfere with flight crews. In 1998 the FAA fined 167 people.

Airlines rarely reveal publicly how many unruly passenger incidents happen on board their planes. But various flight crew organizations estimate the numbers reach into the thousands each year. And they say the problem is occurring more often.

"It is increasing," Lori Vitto, a Las Vegas native and US Airways flight attendant, said. "We had a different type of client 10 or 20 years ago. It was basically the businessmen who traveled all the time or the passengers who could afford the tickets. They were dressed up. They knew the rules of flying ... people today don't know the rules."

And Las Vegas' McCarran International Airport is far from immune to the current air rage epidemic. The FAA doesn't keep passenger interference statistics for individual airports. But several flight attendants and law enforcement officials say air rage occurs more often heading into and out of Las Vegas than it does at many other airports.

Kevin Caudle, a special agent with the FBI's Las Vegas office, said agents respond to unruly passengers calls at McCarran about once a month. He thinks the city's drinking, gaming and stay-out-late atmosphere combined with a large number of late-arriving and late-departing flights create a volatile mix for some passengers.

"We get more calls than most places," Caudle said. "There are people who are tired and fatigued. ... You get tired and you get a little alcohol in you and some people just lose their judgment."

Caudle estimated that "99.9 percent" of the passengers he takes into custody are intoxicated or have not taken prescribed medication. Those rare other cases, he said, involve people "who just can't handle the confinement" of an airplane.

Two weeks ago a Delta Air Lines flight bound for Atlanta from Las Vegas had to turn around just 40 minutes after takeoff when two passengers exchanged blows, apparently over a reclining seat, Caudle said. By the time Metro Police arrived to arrest the men, nobody, including Delta, wanted to press charges. The men agreed to take a later flight and the airplane took off once more for Atlanta, Caudle said.

A day before that a Southwest Airlines flight headed to Oakland, Calif., from Kansas City, Mo., made an emergency landing at McCarran after an unruly passenger punched a flight attendant in the chest.

"I've seen some very bad things," Jerry Passovoy of Las Vegas said Tuesday as he waited for a flight to Seattle. Among the worst: a group of loud, drunken men returning from a hunting trip in Anchorage, Alaska, to Salt Lake City.

"The pilot came out and said, 'One more word and this plane is going down before we get to Salt Lake,' " Passovoy said. "They shut up."

Passovoy, who said he's logged more than 100,000 air miles, has experienced a number of rowdy flights to Las Vegas filled with people who can't wait to get to the Strip.

"The longer flights coming to Las Vegas, people are really wild, especially at night," he said.

Statistics vary, but one study reviewed during a congressional subcommittee hearing on unruly passengers last year claimed that drunkenness was behind about 25 percent of all cases of air rage. Complaints about seat assignments accounted for another 16 percent, and 10 percent of belligerent behavior could be traced to no-smoking rules, according to the study.

Lt. Bill Cavagnaro of Metro's airport substation said he read that alcohol is behind 20 percent of air rage incidents. "That 20 percent must have all been here because I think we've seen them all."

Still, Cavagnaro figures that air rage cases make up only 10 percent of the substation's total caseload. Metro notifies the FAA and FBI every time officers are called out to meet a plane.

Often air carriers are left with the responsibility of pursuing civil penalties against the passenger. Most airlines say they have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to abusive passengers and that they will work with the FAA and law enforcement to stop air rage. But some flight attendants say they are the ones who have to take the initiative to pursue justice.

"A lot of times the flight attendants don't want to take the time, because it is up to us," Vitto said. "You're the one who has to fly back. You're the one who has to fill out the paperwork. You're the one who has to take the time to testify."

Vitto herself was accidently hit on one flight when she tried to break up a scuffle between passengers. She didn't press charges.

Beyond drunkenness, some familiar with the industry think the flying environment contributes increasingly to air rage. Thanks to cheaper fares, bigger planes and tinier seats, more passengers are flying in smaller spaces. And in some cases they're receiving peanuts for meals and breathing recycled air.

Diana Fairechild, author of the book "Jet Smarter," calls most airplane conditions a "toxic environment" that "contributes to air rage." A former international flight attendant of 21 years, Fairechild operates an Internet website, "Healthy Flying with Diana Fairechild," that advises travelers about a number of current issues, including air rage.

Many passengers, she said, hold unrealistic expectations about flying, only to have those expectations crushed by long waits in the airport, cramped conditions on board, and a handful of flight attendants who have to divide their attention among hundreds of fliers.

"They're not happy campers when they get to you and then they look at you as the one who's going to fulfill their dreams," Fairechild said. "It's a constant series of disappointments for a lot of people."

David Fuscus, spokesman for the Air Transport Association, said there's no proof that fuller flights and smaller seats contribute to air rage.

"I've never seen any studies or anything to support that," he said. "We sort of put the rise in these incidents to societal behavior in general."

Some flight attendants, too, think air rage is a natural extension of a culture that's just grown more rude. Pat Schad, a United Airlines flight attendant based in Las Vegas, has never been physically assaulted, but she says she's suffered plenty of verbal abuse. She knows other flight attendants who have been punched, shoved and spit on.

"People's lives are more stressed and it's become a mean society," Schad said. "Common courtesy has really gone down the tubes."

Nevada Sen. Harry Reid has introduced legislation that would increase civil penalties assessed against unruly passengers from $1,100 to $25,000. The bill also would give the secretary of transportation the authority to ban passengers found guilty of dangerous behavior from flying.

The bill is supported by the Association of Flight Attendants and air carriers who believe publicity on tough rules and punishment may deter some air rage. But there is not the same level of support for proposals to ban alcohol on flights. Some flight attendants and air carriers believe such a rule would not stop preflight drinking and only encourage passengers to sneak alcohol onto planes.

"I don't think that we'll ever see alcohol not served on airplanes," Schad said. "For us the ideal thing would be to keep (inebriated) people off the airplane."

While waiting for a flight from Las Vegas to San Francisco Tuesday, Tuli Sudhir recalled a trip from Belfast, Northern Ireland, to Brussels, Belgium, that found him sitting behind a drunken man who shouted obscenities for nearly an hour after a flight attendant refused to give him another drink. A weary cabin of passengers cheered the two security guards who hauled the man off the plane after it landed.

Sudhir doesn't think the man's rage had anything to do with being in an airplane.

"It's just something that could happen anywhere," he said. "I've seen it in a hotel, I've seen it in a restaurant, I've seen it in a supermarket. It's just the person."

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