KNX In Depth: Horrific tragedy at San Diego’s Petco Park — Biden’s really big week — An airline no fly list, but for jerks — Tesla offers driver a “Full Self-Driving” button, but should you use it? – KNX In-Depth
I was back on KNX, our local LA news radio station, to talk about the no fly list for jerks. You’ll see it about 19 minutes in if you want to skip ahead.
Cranky on the Web: The Jerk No-Fly List
3 comments on “Cranky on the Web: The Jerk No-Fly List”
Why can’t I just read the article???
Ellen – Because it’s not an article. It was an appearance on a radio show.
Hey Cranky, thanks for your continued assist to help clarify “the rest of the story” (as Paul Harvey used to say) here in aviation-land. I think one aspect of this issue is that being a jerk on an airplane isn’t against regulations or statute. Therefore, in support of their employees, when customers are jerks, each individual air carrier has chosen to implement their own “no-fly” list. As you said, some air carriers are tough on customers and some aren’t so tough, so this is very subjective. Remember the discussions about all the high-mileage VIP flyers who were big jerks on flights, including sexual assault and verbal abuse, yet airlines didn’t put them on any kind of list, allowing these “more than jerks” to continue to wreak havoc each time they flew? I digress.
Following incidents on aircraft, air carriers may or may not submit reports to the FAA that capture what happened on a flight, since reporting is at the discretion of the crewmember.. If the passenger behaviour is reported as an assault, a threat, intimidation, or interference with a crewmember in the performance of the crewmember’s duties, in violation of 121.580, 125.328, or 135.120, then the FAA will investigate, and if the evidence supports the charge, the FAA will invoke civil penalties. I know there’s a push for Department of Justice to investigate as well, and invoke criminal penalties if the evidence supports such. I’ve not seen a response from DOJ about their ability (resources) to do this.
Also as you mentioned, today everybody is recording what happens on a plane, so there often is evidence of the violation to support crew and witness statements. The idea of sharing lists is raising issues of privacy, antitrust and operational challenges. One suggestion I read is for each air carrier to provide the list to the airline association to which is belongs (A4A, NACA RAA), and let the association manage it, but I don’t know how that would work. Also, several air carriers are reluctant, it seems, to talk about their lists (numbers, types of behaviour reported, etc.) and appear to be unwilling to share their lists with other air carriers, so there is not a unanimous approach to Delta’s request for air carriers to share their lists. What a mess!