Blacklisting air passengers with proper means

A Thai flight attendant seen in this photo during a scuffle, Dec 12, 2014. [Photo provided on Weibo]

The Civil Aviation Administration of China recently issued guidelines for airline companies' making blacklists of passengers with records of bad behavior, requiring the companies to list clear reasons for including people on the list. Comments:

The lists are of passengers that break the law during flights or in airports so they can be prevented from taking flights again, but such power belongs exclusively to the legislature instead of the airline companies. The CAAC has made a good move by regulating the practice, but only requiring airlines to give clear reasons for putting a passenger on the blacklist is far from enough, it needs to prepare a single blacklist that airlines can access.

Wang Lin, associate professor of law at Hainan University, May 25

When passengers behave in improper ways, they will be blacklisted; what if airline companies behave badly? Is it possible to establish a credit system for them, too, and ask them to suspend operations if they break the law?

Liu Zhaorong, associate professor of environmental engineering at Peking University, via Sina micro blog, May 25

Blacklists are important for preventing people who might be a potential risk or disturbance from taking flights, thus saving airline companies and other passengers trouble. The civil aviation administration has finally started talking about it and we expect it will make detailed regulations soon and implement them fully.

FATIII, a self media on civil aviation, via Sina micro blog, May 25

There have been cases of passengers attacking airline ground staff, but passengers are not to blame for every case of the kind; many times it is the airline companies that refuse to explain the reasons for flight delays or other problems that bring about rage in passengers. It is necessary to introduce a more balanced regulation to prevent these conflicts from happening again.

China Youth Daily, May 20