With thousands of cases of unruly passengers this year alone, The Transportation Security Administration announced that they are going to offer self-defense classes again for pilots and flight attendants. This will allow flight attendants and other airline employees to respond well against violent and unruly passengers on board.
TSA used to offer self-defense classes. However, these classes stopped due to the COVID19 pandemic. TSA plans to resume the self-defense classes as early as July. TSA’s Executive Assistant for Security Operations Darby LaJoye said that the self-defense training course will take four hours. Federal air marshals will be teaching the classes. Some of the things that they will teach include “defending against and de-escalating an attack while in an aircraft environment”.
LaJoye said that the TSA hopes that the airline employees will not have to use their training onboard. However, they must be prepared and aware of these situations.
This is not going to be a requirement. However, it is going to be open to all flight-crew members at US airlines.
Increasing Number of Unruly Passengers
There is an existing zero-tolerance policy against unruly passengers. The Federal Aviation Administration announced that potential fines can reach thousands of dollars. Some even reached $30,000.
There were 3,000 cases of unruly passengers since January 1. Though the agency doesn’t have the numbers from previous years, their spokesman is confident that 2021 has the highest ever cases of unruly passengers. It is already three times higher than the average number of cases in the past decade according to FAA.
A lot of these cases were passengers who refused to wear their masks. Some incidences even involved assault against airline employees.
For the airline trade groups, the Department of Justice needs to take action. According to a letter sent by Airlines for America to the FAA, “We respectfully request the FAA refer abhorrent cases to the Department of Justice (DOJ)”.
