A PASSENGER’S DILEMMA By Michel Tre skin What role do you play in the safety of your flight and fellow passengers?
I
stopped flying as a Captain many years ago and now do most of my flying around the world as a passenger. It makes me wonder what I would do if there was a disruptive passenger on board and the safety of the cabin crew and other passengers were in jeopardy.
A NEW GENERATION OF PASSENGERS It has been happening too many times around the world, but mostly concentrated in the Americas. You read about it almost on a daily basis so that it has practically become expected if you are travelling nowadays. During my time as a flight crew member and operating the aircraft, once we reached the cruising altitude, the cockpit (flightdeck) door would open and we would invite passengers to come up and check out the office. It all changed after 9/11. However, even during those times where alcohol was being
served for free on every flight, you never saw or heard any problems with drunk and disorderly passengers. Cabin crew were never trained on how to deal with a verbally or physically aggressive passenger because it never really happened in those good old days. It just didn’t happen. So what changed? I don’t think we could pinpoint exactly what happened to the new generation of passengers.
DECIDING ON INTERVENTIONS We saw an increase of aggression during the times that the COVID face mask requirements were in place. It is still a concern in some parts of the world where masks are still in force in the cabin. Add some alcohol consumption to some passengers who are prone to losing it when intoxicated, plus the mask requirements while flying, and you have a powder keg ready to
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