Prevalence of Unruly Passengers Remains High Despite Fading Pandemic Restrictions

While the overall COVID situation improved around the world, a new study suggests that unruly passengers on flights continue to rise.

While pandemic-related restrictions on flights are fading, studies have shown that bad behavior onboard remains prevalent. According to the latest data by the International Air Transport Association, incidents involving unruly passengers rose by 47% from 2021.  It jumped from 1 incident per 835 flights in 2021 to 1 per 568 in 2023.

This is quite alarming since travel rebound also means more passengers. For this summer, US airlines are expecting 257 million passengers.

Pandemic-related restrictions are said to be the reason behind people’s bad behavior in recent years. Flight attendants deal with hostile passengers as they enforce mandatory masking on flights. But given today’s trend, it seems that there’s more to it than wearing masks on planes.

In an email by the Association of Flight Attendants President Sara Nelson, “The public does not hear about 99% of would-be incidents that are resolved by flight attendants without event.” She added that “We deescalate conflict as aviation’s first responders on nearly every flight.”

Unfortunately, industry experts can only speculate the reason why the incidents of bad behavior remain high.

Aviation security expert Jeffrey Price said that “I’m not sure if there is an overall increase in a feeling of self-entitlement.” Price added that it is possible that people are “feeling more empowered to assert what authority or influence they believe they have.”

Non-Compliance, Verbal Abuse, and Intoxication

IATA discovered that  based on more than 20,000 reports of unruly behavior recorded by 40 different airlines worldwide, non-compliance to crew members’ instructions is at the top of the list. It is then followed by verbal abuse and intoxication.

For non-compliance, this includes cases of passengers smoking cigarettes to those who don’t want to fasten their seatbelts.

In 2019, the Federal Aviation Administration recorded a total of 1,161 unruly passenger reports. This number dropped to 1,009 in 2020 since lockdowns restricted air travel. But in 2021, the number skyrocketed to 5,981 cases. Approximately 72% had something to do with the mask requirement.

By 2022, it dropped to 2,455 unruly passenger reports. The number of cases improved after a federal judge stopped the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s mask mandate in April 2022.

National Customer Rage Survey

If you’re wondering if cases of rude and angry customers are isolated in the aviation industry, that isn’t the case. According to the National Customer Rage Survey, 74% of consumers experienced customer-related issues in the last 12 months. 43% of respondents said that they raised their voices at a customer service employee. That number is significantly higher compared to 35% in 2015.