Masks make some passengers on US airlines fly into a rage

Several US airlines have reported that a growing number of unruly passengers have spit on other passengers, attacked flight crews and even tried to open a door midflight as more people fly again after the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) reported 3,509 incidents of passengers behaving badly as of mid-July. At least 85 Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents have been attacked at checkpoints, two on July 19. The FAA has opened cases into 581 of the incidents. 

This year's air-rage incidents are up over 2020, when the agency launched investigations into 183 unruly passengers. In 2019, it was 146.

Many of the disturbances, 2,605 of them, have been caused by passengers who wouldn't comply with federal law that a mask must be worn on airplanes amid the pandemic, according to the Association of Flight Attendants.

The FAA fined a passenger $10,500 this month for refusing to follow the mask mandate on a flight in February.

Darby LaJoye, TSA's acting administrator, told a House of Representatives Homeland Security subcommittee on Tuesday that 25 of 85 assaults had been reported since May. Last month, a passenger in Denver bit two TSA officers. 

It has become so bad that flight attendants are being retrained in key self-defense techniques.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants, said in a June letter to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the TSA: "This year, the rate of documented disruptive passenger incidents is at an all-time high and just last week TSA announced that, starting in July 2021, it will resume its voluntary classes in self-defense training for flight attendants and pilots.

"Union safety representatives consistently report that most disruptive passenger incidents currently involve non-compliance with mask policies, and often a contributor to the incidents is alcohol consumption."

The FAA rolled out a zero-tolerance policy in January after a spate of violent incidents on airplanes. The agency that it historically had addressed unruly-passenger incidents using a variety of methods, ranging from warnings and counseling to civil penalties. 

But on the FAA website "under the new zero tolerance policy, FAA will not address these cases with warnings or counseling. The agency will pursue legal enforcement action against any passenger who assaults, threatens, intimidates, or interferes with airline crew members."

On July 6, the FAA assessed $119,000 in civil penalties against passengers for alleged violations of federal regulations as part of its zero-tolerance effort.

At least nine passengers were hit by fines ranging from $7,500 to $21,500 for allegedly interfering with flight attendants who instructed passengers to obey cabin crew instructions and various federal regulations. 

The cases involved "assaulting the flight crew and other passengers, drinking alcohol brought aboard the plane and refusing to wear facemasks".

On July 6, a passenger on an American Airlines flight was duct-taped to her seat after she allegedly attacked the flight crew and tried to open the door of the aircraft in midflight. In a stark video posted to social media, the woman can be seen with tape over her mouth and arms.

Witnesses said that the woman had become unruly about an hour into the two-hour flight from Dallas-Fort Worth to Charlotte, North Carolina.

In an incident on Delta Airlines, Adelaide Schrowang, 23, of Sarasota, Florida, was livid with flight attendants after she was asked to wear a mask. She spat at other passengers in a rage. Schrowang was later arrested at Southwest Florida International Airport on July 7.

Wearing a mask in the US to combat COVID-19 became highly political under former president Donald Trump. 

Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican US representative from Georgia, compared mask wearing in the House to the ways Nazis controlled Jewish people during the Holocaust.

TSA will enforce the mask mandate on airplanes until mid-September.

Nelson of the flight attendants' association said: "Masks not only help to protect more vulnerable passengers from the Delta variant, but they also help to protect passengers and crewmembers who are unable to get vaccinated for valid medical reasons — but still need to fly."

The TSA announced that on June 11 it had screened 2,028,961 passengers, most since March 2020, raising concerns that the increased traffic could add to in-flight disruptions.