Flight attendants in Denver handed out fliers to raise awareness of the epidemic of “unruly passengers.”
It seems like every week brings new stories about “unruly passengers.” In August alone, Boing Boing reported about four such passengers, including the backpacker who threatened to blow up the Malaysia Airlines flight, the LAX passenger who burst the emergency slide, and the grumpy gentleman who hit a flight attendant attacked object with a sharp knife on a Delta flight. In fact, the situation has gotten so out of control that flight attendants outside Denver International Airport were handing out fliers today to raise awareness of the growing problem.
Out of CBS News:
The flight attendants distributed information flyers and wanted to make passengers aware of the big problem. They say it’s not just physical attacks, but also verbal attacks.
“We are here to ensure passengers get where they need to go safely. We are here to make sure we make them comfortable and ensure our airline is running at full speed. “But we can’t do that if we’re attacked on the plane at 30,000 feet,” said Corliss King, TWU Local 556 vice president. “It’s a real challenge for us because we can’t stop and say, ‘This is unacceptable’.”
“We hope that people adopt the usual behaviors that they use on the ground, but unfortunately what happens is that people get on planes and think that this is a place where you can behave in a way that is unacceptable.” We ask for public awareness of these issues and support in understanding that all we really want to do is return home the same way we came.
The campaign, called “Assault Won’t Fly,” is sponsored by the Transport Workers Union, which says commercial airlines deal with five disorderly passengers every day. One of their goals, according to CBS, is to get Congress to pass the Abusive Passenger Protection Act, which would “reauthorize harsh penalties against passengers who attack flight attendants,” according to CBS.
