Incidents aboard airplanes have risen sharply, and a large proportion involve passengers who’ve been drinking.
The latest news report: “A hotheaded businessman allegedly attacked a flight attendant after her ‘shitty’ colleague was not sufficiently deferential while reciting the available meal choices,” according to the Daily Beast.
The Daily Beast says Robert Croizat, a U.K. citizen, was taking an American Airlines flight from Barbados to Miami on March 8, 2023. After two hours in the air, and two drinks, he allegedly got out of his seat and confronted a male flight attendant, demanded to see the captain, refused to return to his seat, then pushed a female flight attendand twice (see story here).
Croizat, who’s complaining about the slowness of the U.S. legal system, apparently plans to plead guilty to misdemeanor charges of interfering with a flight crew and assault. Although the story doesn’t say so, my guess is he’ll also be banned from flying on American Airlines again. However, the U.S. has yet to implement an all-airlines ban policy against disruptive and violent passengers.
As I read these stories, and there are many of them — the FAA received nearly 2,500 unruly passenger reports in 2022 — it seems they often involve drinking. So if you want to reduce the occurrence of these incidents, it seems obvious the most effective and expeditious way to do that is to stop serving alcohol in airports and on planes. But I don’t suppose that will happen, because there’s money to be made by serving drinks.
Congress could do it, though, so why aren’t our legislators looking at this? How much taxpayer money is being spent on policing the problem, and prosecuting inebriated passengers?