Flight attendant Klarissa-Ann Principe hands out a flier and wristband to a passenger to spread awareness about violence against airline workers at Harry Reid International Airport Wednesday, June 29, 2022. The Transport Workers Union of America is calling for federal policy, including passing the Protection From Abusive Passengers Act, which will ban passengers from airline travel if they engage in abusive behavior towards airline workers.
Thursday, June 30, 2022 | 2 a.m.
Klarissa-Ann Principe knows it can be scary to share airplane cabin space with an unruly passenger thousands of feet in the air.
That’s why Principe and close to a dozen other flight attendants and airline workers spent part of Wednesday morning outside Harry Reid International Airport handing out informational cards in the June heat.
A flight attendant with Allegiant Airlines, Principe is also a member of the Transport Workers Union of America, the organization that organized Wednesday’s event. Workers from Southwest Airlines were also among the group that assembled at a Terminal 1 passenger drop-off bay.
Members of the group handed out red cards with QR codes and a message that “assault won’t fly.”
Principe, who has worked as a flight attendant for nearly a decade, said she noticed a change in passenger behavior after the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, which led, for a time, to a nationwide requirement that all passengers on planes wear face coverings.
“It seems like COVID just threw everyone’s mindset in different directions,” Principe said. “The mask mandate definitely increased the amount of hostility toward crew members.”
In April, a federal judge in Florida struck down the mandate. Despite that change, Principe says she hasn’t noticed a significant difference in passenger behavior.
“With that mandate going away, things haven’t changed much. Yes, passengers have always gotten upset with us, but I feel like everything is raised up now,” she said.
Reports of unruly or abusive passengers on airplanes have persisted throughout the pandemic.
About 1,100 unruly passenger investigations were initiated in 2021 by the Federal Aviation Administration, a sharp increase from previous years. As of Tuesday, according to the FAA, just under 1,600 incidents of unruly passengers had been reported this year.
In 2017, by comparison, just 91 investigations were initiated by federal authorities.
Last month, a California woman who punched a Southwest Airlines flight attendant in the face during a flight in 2021 was sentenced to 15 months in a federal prison.
In February, an American Airlines flight was diverted to Kansas City after an unruly passenger attempted to force open a door. He was eventually subdued when a flight attendant hit him on the head with a coffee pot. Zip ties and duct tape were used on the man to attempt to keep him under control before the plane, which was headed from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C., landed.
Principe said she hadn’t witnessed anything as physical as those incidents, but she said there had been times when she’s felt threatened.
“I’ve seen a lot of noncompliance (with in-flight rules),” Principe said. “People have this mindset that they paid for their ticket, so they can do whatever they want. You’re not the boss of me — that’s the attitude some have. Everybody seems to want to challenge you on every little thing. Once you’re in the sky, you’re 35,000 feet up in the air, so you can’t get away.”
Part of the solution, union members say, is in the form of pending legislation that would create a temporary no-fly list for passengers who have been found to be unruly or abusive aboard commercial flights.
“The problem now is that somebody can act up on, say, a Delta Air Lines flight and they get banned from that airline, but they can just fly Southwest or some other airline the next day,” Principe said. “There’s no list right now, and there should be a no-fly list.”
Christa Gifford, president of the local chapter of the Transport Workers Union and also a flight attendant for Allegiant Air, said Wednesday’s showing at the airport helped raise awareness about the problem of abusive passengers.
“We want the flying public to be aware that flight attendant assaults are a real thing,” Gifford said. “This is happening, and there needs to be legislation to protect our crews from unruly passengers.”
The Protection from Abusive Passengers Act was introduced into both houses of Congress earlier this year in response to the reports of poor behavior by some airplane passengers. If it passes into law, it will give flight attendants like Principe and Gifford more peace of mind.
Southwest, which is the largest carrier out of Harry Reid International, is among several airlines that have endorsed the legislation
“When there’s a hostile passenger or somebody’s getting in your face on the aircraft, your mind is going a million miles per hour,” Principe said. “Sometimes other passengers step in, and sometimes that works, but we shouldn’t have to worry about things like that. We just want to do our job.”
