Ensuring orderly flight

Incidents relating to unruly air passengers have risen sharply all over the world in the past two years. These incidents have even led to flights being diverted or delayed and the alleged culprits being arrested and prosecuted. The rate of such incidents remained high till the early part of this year. Interestingly, a vast majority of incidents regarding awful behaviour by airline passengers have been related to not wearing masks and non-adherence to Covid protocols. In an informal survey of IATA's Cabin Operations Safety Technical Group, one member airline reported over 1,000 incidents of non-compliance in a single week. Another IATA member airline reported a 55 per cent increase in unruly passenger incidents, with a 200 per cent increase in offloaded passengers. These incidents have even resulted in flight diversions. In many cases, disagreements between compliant and non-compliant passengers have escalated to physical altercations and assaults — jeopardising health, safety and order on board.

While most passengers complied with the face mask requirements, some civil aviation regulators, such as the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), reported a sharp increase in incidents involving those not following the rules. Between January 1 and April 12 this year, over 1,150 incidents were reported to the FAA, of which 65 per cent related to refusal to comply with the federal mandate to wear a mask. Of these, 345 have been investigated compared to an annual average of 142 over the previous decade, with 169 enforcement cases initiated. In the period from January 2021 when the FAA introduced a zero-tolerance approach towards unruly passenger incidents, over 7,000 incidents were reported in the US. However, such incidents have now fallen by 60 per cent from the peak in 2021, resulting from an innovative and effective awareness campaign and robust enforcement action. As per FAA data, the Year-to-Date numbers as of September 13, 2022, showed 1,944 reports of unruly passengers. Of these, investigations were initiated in 673 cases while enforcement actions were taken in 460 incidents. The FAA said these amounted to an average of two incidents per 10,000 flights for the week ending September 4, 2022. From 2015 to September 2022, the number of incidents stood at 105 (in 2015), 102 (2016), 91 (2017), 159 (2018), 146 (2019), 183 (2020), 1,099 (2021) and 673 till September this year. A senior official of the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said: "Not wearing a mask is arguably no different from not wearing a seatbelt or not putting your laptop away. They involve a failure to follow instructions. But because of the pandemic and the public health implications, not wearing a mask makes it much more personal and has caused confrontation between passengers. It has also led governments, such as the United States, to take a zero-tolerance approach and to encourage incident reporting by crew."

The problem of unruly passengers creates significant safety challenges in flight. Such incidents include violence against crew and other passengers, harassment, verbal or even physical abuse of passengers and crew, smoking, failure to follow safety and public health instructions and other forms of riotous behaviour. Although such acts are committed by a tiny minority of passengers, they have a disproportionate impact. The IATA data showed that there was a rate of one incident for every 1,340 flights in the first seven months of 2021 versus one incident for every 1,561 for the 17-month period from January 1, 2020 to July 30, 2021. A number of governments also reported growing numbers of unruly and disruptive passenger incidents. For instance, in the United States, there have been over 7,000 cases of unruly and disruptive passengers since January 1, 2021, a whopping 70 per cent of which related to mask rules. Mask rules were the reason for 60 per cent of unruly passenger incidents for all airlines put together, according to IATA data. In the past two years, the pandemic brought the issue of unruly and disruptive passengers to the attention of governments and regulators. Despite international traffic being down by more than 70 per cent in 2021 compared with 2019, some airlines reported a sharp increase in the rate of reported incidents. While deliberate non-compliance with lawful instruction given by the crew in flight has been an issue for many years, such incidents may not have received so much attention from law enforcement agencies. But the Covid health emergency entirely changed the context. Now non-compliance with mask mandates is being perceived as an affront to public health.

In April 2014, member states of the UN's International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) recognised the growing frequency and severity of such incidents and agreed on significant changes to international air law. They adopted the 'Protocol to Amend the Convention on Offences and Certain Other Acts Committed on Board Aircraft' (also called Montréal Protocol 2014 or MP14). It provided new guidance for governments in the form of a model legislation and civil and administrative penalties to enhance enforcement of rules to prevent all types of unruly and disruptive offenses and acts. The MP14 amends the Tokyo Convention and gives jurisdiction to the country in which an aircraft lands.

The need for preventing such incidents from happening and managing them effectively when they do, is critical. With passengers returning to the skies in growing numbers as governments ease Covid restrictions, it is essential that all travellers understand the unacceptability and possible legal consequences of unruly or disruptive behaviour in aviation facilities and onboard aircraft. Governments and the airline industry need to undertake awareness campaigns in this regard. The IATA has provided airlines with comprehensive guidance materials covering issues such as conflict de-escalation, responsible service of alcohol and restraint. It has also launched and participated in several public-facing campaigns to raise awareness among passengers. For example, IATA has participated in the "One Too Many" initiative in the UK and "Fly Safely, Drink Responsibly" campaign in Scandinavia. An awareness campaign was recently implemented by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and a toolkit was created for use in social media, airport digital signage and public service announcements. Backed by strong enforcement actions, reported incidents fell 60 per cent from the peak, as per FAA figures.

The unruly and disruptive behaviour of a small minority of passengers have had a disproportionate adverse impact on other passengers and cabin crew. Non-compliance of the requirement to wear face masks onboard an aircraft has led to a sharp rise in reported cases since the start of the pandemic. While non-compliance with crew instruction has been an issue for many years, failure to wear a face mask during the pandemic health emergency has raised government awareness of the problem. Many countries have civil penalty systems to check the menace of unruly passengers. The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) in India has made face masks mandatory on flights and ordered that those passengers be termed as "unruly" if they do not follow the laid down rules and be dealt with accordingly. It has also said the violators can be put on the 'no-fly' list, if needed. Criminal prosecutions can also be sought for more serious incidents.

Views expressed are personal