- One warning, that's it.
You gave me one.
- [Reporter] You may have seen the videos on social media.
(people shouting)
Or experienced it firsthand.
(people grumbling)
According to airlines,
the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA union,
and the FAA, disruptive, unruly and violent passengers
have become a serious problem.
Last year, the FAA reported a record high number
of unruly passenger reports.
Although incidents have fallen
since spiking earlier in the year,
today's rate remains above pre-pandemic levels.
- This past year of starting at the beginning of 2021
has been the most difficult
and consistently dangerous time in our careers.
We have been kicked, punched, spit at,
had trash thrown at us, and it's taken its toll.
- [Reporter] In a survey taken last summer
of 5,000 flight attendants from 30 airlines,
85% said they had dealt with unruly passengers in 2021,
with over half saying they'd experienced
five or more such incidents
and 17% saying they were involved
in an incident that got physical.
One solution that's gaining traction
is a federal no-fly list.
- Unruly passengers who've been convicted
of in-flight offenses
that they'd be put on a special no-fly list
and not be allowed to fly on any airline.
- [Reporter] According to the FAA,
70% of last year's passenger reports
were related to mask related incidents.
So far this year, 65% of incidents are related to masks.
Now, with in flight and airport mask mandates
slated to be lifted in March,
is a national no-fly list really needed?
Earlier this year, the CEO of Delta Airlines
Ed Bastian wrote to the US Justice Department,
asking the agency to create a national no-fly list
for anyone convicted of disrupting a flight.
Bastian wrote, "A no-fly list of unruly passengers
will help prevent future incidents
and serve as a strong symbol of the consequences
of not complying with crew member instructions
on commercial aircraft."
- All the airlines over the last year or two
as these conflicts in flights
and disputes over masks have ramped up,
they've been administering their own lists of people
that they won't have on board anymore.
- [Reporter] Delta said it had put nearly 1900 people
on its list for refusing to comply with masking requirements
and submitted more than 900 ban names
to the TSA to pursue civil penalties.
- The concern is so that they don't
and really can't share that information.
So somebody that has caused a problem on a United Flight
and they can no longer fly United
because of the airlines' policies
on theory, they can book their next flight on Delta
where they may end up being disrupted again.
- [Reporter] Delta said that while such incidents
of bad behavior represent just a small fraction
of the overall flights on Delta,
the rate of incidents on the airline
has increased nearly 100% since 2019.
- Flight attendants are absolutely not willing
to accept this as the new normal.
So what they're saying is make it stop.
You also see this in the fact that across the board,
the flight attendants are just not willing to pick up
the voluntary overtime hours
that they were before the pandemic.
And so the public saw that
in many flight cancellations in the fall
and even over the holidays.
- [Reporter] In 2021, the FAA said it initiated
nearly 1100 investigations into unruly passengers,
which is more than the previous seven years combined.
- Flight attendants will say a lot of these incidents
don't necessarily have anything to do with masks.
Some of them involve alcohol,
and some of them just seem to defy all explanation.
(people shouting)
- [Reporter] The Biden administration
has voiced its support for the idea.
- Anything besides zero, is an unacceptable rate.
- [Reporter] But not everyone is in favor
of a national no-fly list.
Recently, a group of Republican senators
wrote a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland,
suggesting that such a law could infringe on civil rights.
- The Republican senators who opposed the letter,
basically they argued that it would give
the Department Of Justice
too much authority to create a list,
and there wouldn't necessarily be transparency
and clarity into who would be on the list,
and that this really is something
that should come through Congress.
- [Reporter] The senators wrote,
"The creation of this list by DOJ
would result in a severe restriction
on the ability of citizens
to fully exercise their constitutional right
to engage in interstate transportation."
The senators also noted that since most of last year's
unruly passenger incidents were mask related,
the no-fly list would unfairly target maskless passengers.
The senators wrote "Creating a federal no-fly list
for unruly passengers who are skeptical of this mandate
would seemingly equate them to terrorists
who seek to actively take the lives of Americans
and perpetrate attacks on the homeland."
- They also complain that it equates people
who are objecting to the mask mandate to terrorists,
which they say is unfair and overblown.
That's not quite exactly what Delta had proposed,
it's not necessarily that Delta had proposed
everyone who won't wear masks should be banned from flying,
but obviously it would be controversial.
- [Reporter] But how realistic is a no-fly list?
Now that the unruly passenger rate has fallen
since its dramatic spike last year,
what's more, mask mandates
which were one of the biggest points of friction last year,
are coming to an end in March.
- This is an issue that has been so politicized,
that people who want to wear masks
and people who don't want to wear masks
are both in conflict with each other.
And so sometimes the aggressors on the planes
are the people who are so angry
that other people just won't follow the rules.
- [Reporter] The agency with the authority
to extend the mask mandate, the TSA,
has said nothing thus far about another extension.
Last December, the TSA extended its mask mandate
for another three months,
to combat a surge in Omicron variant cases.
(dramatic music)