A recent incident, which went viral, involved an airline passenger duct-taped to her seat by flight attendants. | Pix
A recent incident, which went viral, involved an airline passenger duct-taped to her seat by flight attendants. | Pix
New legislation could ban airline passengers permanently in extreme cases, such as one woman who flew to Charlotte Douglas International Airport last year and was fined nearly $82,000 for her behavior onboard.
In a viral video from 2021, a woman flying from Dallas to Charlotte was recorded being duct-taped to her seat after allegedly biting a flight attendant, an incident that was only one out of nearly 1,100 that occurred in 2021, according to Queen City News. Now, a new Congressional bill was announced last week that could ban unruly passengers -- perhaps permanently -- from flying on airlines across the U.S.
“It’s something that we have experienced for many years,” Allie Malis with the Association of Professional Flight Attendants, an organization in support of the bill, told Queen City News.
If passed, the bill would make it possible to ban passengers for a variety of actions that put both their safety at risk, as well as the safety of others onboard, such as terroristic threats or physical violence. The bill was introduced by Democrats, with Republicans having previously opposed similar legislation on the basis of a person’s right to travel freely. Currently, the bill has the support of various major airlines and unions but has only been filed and has not yet been brought up for legislative discussion.
The incident involving the woman on the flight to Charlotte recently made headlines after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) proposed an unusually high monetary fine for the passenger, giving her 30 days to respond.
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