The Covid era’s surge in air rage incidents is aiding flight attendants’ demand for a benefit they’ve been seeking since 9/11 — legally mandated self-defense training.
A provision in a major Senate aviation policy bill would require airlines to train flight attendants to “subdue and restrain” an attacker and defend themselves against weapons. The proposal comes after an unprecedented upswing in confrontations with unruly air passengers since 2020, which have forced flight crews to contend with everything from near-stabbings to broken teeth.
“Obviously the last three years have given us ample reasons for why self defense is an important part of training for flight attendants,” said Taylor Garland, a spokesperson for the Association of Flight Attendants, a union that has pushed for the training mandate.
Airlines in the past have argued that the costs of federal security mandates, including additional training, should fall on the government rather than private enterprise. The major U.S. airlines and their main trade group did not comment when asked their positions on the current Senate language.
“The airlines were always loath to pay for it,” said former Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), who chaired the House Transportation Committee until early this year and led its aviation panel in 2001. DeFazio is now senior strategic advisor to lobbying firm Summit Strategies, though he has said he has no plans to register as a lobbyist.
He called airline opposition to paid self-defense training “irresponsible,” saying that “giving the training — particularly given the uptick of incidents — could be very, very useful and potentially avoid an incident at some point that could be catastrophic.”
Airlines for America, a trade group representing most major commercial airlines, said in a statement that “safety and security of passengers and employees is the top priority.” The group did not answer directly when asked if it supports or opposes the updated flight crew training requirement as written in the Senate bill.
The group said its members “train their crew members and other frontline employees in de-escalation techniques so that self-defense is used as a last resort,” and noted that its airlines “have partnered” with the Transportation Security Administration in support of an optional self-defense training course “for many years.”
United Airlines declined to comment. Delta Air Lines, American Airlines and Southwest Airlines directed POLITICO to Airlines For America. Spirit Airlines and Frontier Airlines did not respond to requests for comment.
Existing law already requires airlines to train their flight crews, including on self defense. But some flight attendants say the current requirement, as written, allows too much room for interpretation.
I used to work at an international airport. Once, when a plane arrived they discovered that one of the passengers had likely died of natural causes before landing. They had him removed and the doctor obliged by declaring him dead on the jet bridge, rather than on the plane.
Apparently, if a passenger is declared dead on the plane, they have to do a thorough clean. This would have caused a delay. Delays cost money. Thanks to him officially having died on the jet bridge, no thorough clean was required. The cleaning staff removed the excess rubbish, and some lucky passenger unknowingly got to fly in the dead passenger’s seat less than half an hour later.
I suppose I should have been more appalled, but this happened for a low cost airline. I never felt too much sympathy for passengers who paid significantly less for their flight, often a flight that could have been a train ride that didn’t kill the planet, invariably treated ground staff like shit, then complained when the budget airline offered them budget service.
Not that the business class passengers were much better. Like the VIP who deliberately shoved a pregnant colleague with his trolley, but wasn’t banned from BA, because he was a gold member or something stupid like that.
I see you’ve never been to America.
And if you don’t feel the need to treat the people with dignity who use a cheaper airline, then you probably shouldn’t be working for a cheaper airline. Everyone should be treated with respect until they prove they don’t deserve it.
They proved they didn’t deserve respect by flying with airlines which are infamous for treating staff poorly, ignoring and outright breaking labour laws, regularly fucking over customers, and by flying relatively short distances rather (than taking a train, bus or even car) and being part of the problem when it comes to climate change.
Obviously, I know this is a hard truth, but if someone sees a kid drowning but chooses to eat an ice cream rather than help they’re evil. Most people do that on a daily basis because the kid’s drowning far away and off-screen. Why should underpaid employees have respect for customers who support a company that fucks people over, when its their turn to get fucked over?
They could instead earn some respect by buying a ticket with a regular airline that treats its staff properly, or by taking the train because although it takes a bit longer you’re not killing the planet.
Most groundstaff work for a handler, not the airline itself. So in this case the cheap airline subcontracted my company to board and deboard the plane, take care of luggage etc. But crucially, the cheap airlines didn’t pay us to handle complaints or deal with delays. So when a flight was cancelled, as often happened because they knowingly flew a schedule which was far too tight, customers would be left stranded and be told to call a call centre somewhere on a paying number. Once again, it’s hard to sympathise, given these customers knew that this happened regularly, yet still went ahead and bought the cheap tickets anyway. We would however hand out little fliers and explain their rights under EU law. Said airlines would regularly flout the law when it came to legally required compensation. Obviously that’s no different in the US.
In any case, you get what you pay for. Of course, this was only a short term starter job. They didn’t pay enough to retain staff long term. This is common in the industry, which is why you’ll occassionally hear stories about a kid sneaking past the gate and end up in the wrong destination or someone getting sucked into an engine. Staff would turn up drunk or high, not bother to check documents properly, not enter the weight of luggage correctly leading to balance issues, that kind of thing. You pay McDonalds wages you get McDonalds level employees. Have a safe flight!
A) they didn’t necessarily know all of these things… Not everyone sees every bit of news about airlines, and certainly nobody bothers to compile it all to rank them (not even journalists do this that I’m aware of)
B) to a large extent, every single airline has problems in the US… Every major carrier has problems with staff treatment, labor law violations, and customer service issues
C) some people are poor, and when you’re working for a living, speedy travel is very important because you don’t have the paid time off to accommodate very shitty alternative transit options (even if you have the money, which is also a question mark)
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