New fines worth $162,000 against unruly passengers

Dubai, United Arab Emirates - The Federal Aviation Administration issued fines to eight passengers on Monday, amounting to a total of $161,823, the third highest set of fines since the agency announced a zero-tolerance policy for disorderly behavior on board, earlier this year. Flight crews have reported more than 5,200 disturbances to the FAA since January 1, and the agency has received about 300 reports of disturbances resulting from alcohol and intoxication.

The highest fine was $40,823 for a passenger who the Federal Aviation Administration said illegally brought his alcoholic beverage onto a Southwest Airlines flight in April. According to the Federal Aviation Administration, the passenger “sexually assaulted the flight attendant” when she asked him to stop drinking.

The agency says the passenger then went to the plane's toilet to smoke marijuana. The Federal Aviation Administration explained that he was arrested for resisting arrest and public intoxication.

The Federal Aviation Administration reported that another passenger appeared intoxicated and repeatedly removed his mask after crew members asked him to put it on. He insulted other passengers and shouted at a crew member, saying: “This is America.

The Federal Aviation Administration said in its news release that another passenger “urinated on the bathroom floor, was verbally abusive to the flight crew, and refused to follow the crew’s instructions regarding wearing a mask,” and was fined $17,000. This list of assaults goes on, and in this regard, Sarah Nelson, International President of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, recently told Ofoq News, in an interview about the increasingly aggressive behavior among American airline passengers: “People are not allowed to drink their own alcohol on a flight or even at the airport, and they are not allowed to serve themselves.”

Nelson said riots on planes "impact flight attendants' ability to do their jobs," adding that the incidents occur "with a relatively small group of people." “I also want to stress that we are not ready to accept this as the new normal,” she explained.

The FAA's announcement comes as airlines face the largest assault campaign by passengers since the beginning of the pandemic.