Originally published at: Violent airline passenger sends flight attendant to hospital | Boing Boing
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Pedant alert:
Not a flight attendant but a gate agent. These are different jobs.
I’m hoping these maskholes get put on the No-fly list.
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It’s time for a national no-fly list shared by all airlines. As is currently implemented, you get to go from airline to airline beating up people and harassing everyone.
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If you have to be asked to leave a flight for not following the directions of the FAs, you ought to get a one year ban from flying with any carrier operating in the US. If you have to be asked again, after that year, or have to be escorted off the plane by the police, you ought to be banned for at least ten.
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What the hell is in the water that this is happening every other day it seems like. Flying is a PITA, but come the fuck on. How is punching anyone going to fix anything?
I assume such things would make Soutwest ban this guy from future flights. The airlines should share those ban lists.
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Is it too much to hope that banning these people from flying for life on every airline (on top of criminal charges) would eventually solve the problem? Or is our supply of violent wackos inexhaustible?
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Southwest Airlines flight to NYC from Dallas
What a surprise. I think I’ve read here before that Texas flights, along with Florida and Nevada ones, are the worst when it comes to violent passengers.
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Lifetime ban. Air travel is no joke and there is no one who doesn’t know how they’re expected to behave as evidenced by the entire history of commercial air travel up to 2020. People felt emboldened to march a flag of sedition into the Capitol because of the unhinged lunacy of the past five years and are still publicly proud and, in fact, attempting to make careers from it. There’s no putting that genie back in the bottle and there’s no evidence these people will “learn their lesson”, but will instead double down and become more violent at the next pass. A lifetime ban is scary enough to discourage most of them while also preventing those who aren’t cowed by it from making a second attempt.
I’m fucking sick of this. Grind them to dust, one and all.
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We already have a system for enforcing criminal laws, notoriously flawed as it is.
Giving formal extrajudicial punishment powers to the same aircrews that deplane brown people for looking “suspicious”, demand that shirts with Arabic writing be turned inside out, and drop “Let’s go Brandon” into their pre-flight spiels seems like … the wrong answer.
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That already happens and is abused to single out brown, mainly Muslim or “Muslim-looking” people (see “Cintroversy and criticism” section).
What we’re talking about is a no-fly list that extends to people who are convicted of actually committing violent acts against air crew, passengers, etc. We can’t throw out all legal consequences because they’ve been abused. If anything, a new version of the no-fly list could be recalibrated to eliminate this prejudice (as much as possible; enforcement is always going to carry bias) and actually have teeth beyond assuming everyone in a turban or hijab is a terrorist.
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It’s not really pedantic in this case: 14 CFR Part 91.11 prohibits interference with flight crew; as does 49 U.S. Code § 46504; and it’s something that the IATA is against and encourages adoption of model legislation where not already in place; so America is hardly uniquely draconian on the matter. (As the famous ‘Nut Rage’ sisters found out, when even the fact that it was on Daddy’s airline couldn’t stop the consequences).
A gate agent, on the other hand, isn’t flight crew and would be vanishingly unlikely to ever fall under the protections afforded to flight crew during the period when they are in command of the aircraft. If it’s malicious and sends someone to the hospital it’s almost certainly some flavor of assault, if you can get the DA to care; but beating on gate agents is legally in the same bucket as abusing grocery store cashiers; while beating on flight crew is assault; and can also be a for-real-serious federal crime if you do it once that door closes.
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I don’t share your enthusiasm for further legitimizing the extrajudicial travesty that is the US No Fly List, let alone expanding it.
And, practically speaking, If someone isn’t deterred by the prospect of getting their life comprehensively ruined by a felony conviction, I doubt that layering on a post-9/11-era “we can’t legally call it a punishment” punishment will change their calculus much.
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im sorry - FUCK a “no fly” list.
Someone needed to clean this guys clock.
yeah, I’m tired of assholes being jerks to airline employees
I’m also tired of the REST OF US — NOT taking care of this.
Yes, yes, I’m a grumpy old man. and we are supposed to be all kind and loving.
but at what point do we say “no more bullies” and just knock the sucker OUT. Duct tape 'em to the floor, and wait for the ‘authorities’ to come.
call me old, its true. but I’m tired of it. real tired. Be kind to your fellow humans, and when you see someone who has forgotten this lesson, help remind them. first kindly, then with a right cross or a handbag (i am still a fan of the Aunt Esther style)
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We’ve had a armed society for a while now. Is it polite yet?
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Nor do I. Nothing I said even approaches that. If you’d like to offer a different strategy I’m sure people would be eager to hear it.
ETA: To clarify, what I’m suggesting is that people who actually commit violent assault against passengers, air crew and airport staff be banned from flying ever again. It’s a privilege to fly and there are options that don’t infringe one’s freedom of movement, but still carry consequences for inhumane behavior. Just because something has a similar name does not mean it’s functionally the same.
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Travel restrictions proportionate to the crime, imposed after due process, might be a reasonably good idea, if the entire “No Fly List” brand hadn’t already been tainted by the current Star-Chamber-like process. At this point, adding a due-process “No Fly List” to the existing, parallel no-due-process “No Fly List” would just serve to legitimize and normalize the no-due-process list.
Here’s an idea: maybe we just use the existing massive prosecutorial powers to bring the felony hammer down on these “nice, normal, middle- to upper-class” criminals, rather than saving that kind of justice for the usual poor and disenfranchised suspects? We don’t need to invent new punishments to scare these people, we merely have to show them that their class won’t protect them (anymore) from facing the kind of punishment that are just a matter of course for poor people.
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It would be interesting to plot out which airports are having violent issues and see if there is a pattern. I work in a Midwest airport and we haven’t had any violent incidents for over a year (possibly more, I’d have to actually check).
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I see your idea and raise you one: I predict (see what I’m about to do here?) that the powers that be will deploy AI (in whatever sense they want to interpret the phrase) to predict which airports will be subject to most violence, and then pre-arrest those people who we think might be the most likely to be potential perpetrators.
Academic research has shown that it is only polite in as much as those with the guns intimidate those without them to do what ever the hell they want.
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