With record Thanksgiving air travel looming, the government launches a new ‘civility campaign’ to curb an alarming spike in unruly passenger behavior – Yahoo

Dress “with respect.” Help elderly people lift their bags. Keep your kids under control. Say please and thank you, especially to flight attendants.

These are some of the things the Department of Transportation (DOT) is urging air travelers to do as we head into what’s expected to be a record-setting holiday travel season. The department launched a new “civility campaign” on Thursday that it hopes will “restore courtesy and class to air travel” and help curb a troubling rise in unruly — and, at times, violent — behavior by American air travelers.

“There’s no question we’ve lost sight of what makes travel fun — the excitement, the relaxation, the cordial conversations,” DOT wrote in a press release unveiling the new campaign. “Americans already feel divided and stressed. We can all do our part to bring back civility, manners, and common sense. When we can unite around shared values, we can feel more connected as a country.”

DOT’s message comes at a time when out-of-control passenger behavior is much more common than it was a decade ago. There were 2,096 separate incidents involving unruly passengers last year, more than double the number that occurred in 2019, according to data from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Things have actually calmed down considerably over the past few years following an extraordinary spike in incidents in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, there were nearly 6,000 reports of unruly passenger behavior. The overwhelming majority of those incidents were driven by passengers who refused to comply with the federal mask mandate that had been put in place by the Biden administration. That mandate ended in 2022, causing the number of unruly passenger incidents to drop by almost 60%.

But even with no more fights over masks, the number of incidents has stayed well above pre-pandemic levels ever since. A tally of incidents released by the FAA last year lists numerous reports of travelers assaulting flight attendants, inappropriately touching other passengers, threatening crew members and even trying to breach the flight deck.

In response to this trend, the FAA has implemented a “zero tolerance” policy for bad passenger behavior. Under the new policy, the agency cut back on the warnings and counseling that had historically been its go-to tactics and instead ramped up the legal punishments it issues to travelers who get out of line.

In 2017, before the policy was in place, the government took legal action after just 12 incidents and issued a total of $100,000 in fines. In 2022, it issued 567 legal penalties that added up to $8.4 million in total fines. Those numbers have gone down a lot over the past couple of years, but they’re still way above where they were before the new policy was put in place.

More than 6 million people are expected to travel through U.S. airports this Thanksgiving season, according to estimates from AAA. Thankfully, airport operations have largely gotten back to normal after severe disruptions caused by the government shutdown earlier this month. But there are still going to be long lines, large crowds, delays and cancellations that will test travelers’ patience. DOT is hoping its message will help passengers keep their tempers in check and cut back on the number of public blowups when things don’t go as planned.

“It’s not your imagination,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy wrote on social media. “Traveling has become more uncivilized! But it doesn’t have to be this way.”