A passenger assaulted a Southwest Airlines flight attendant on Sunday after being asked to keep her seat belt fastened—part of a disturbing recent trend that includes nearly 500 “passenger misconduct incidents” between April 8 and May 15.
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The incident happened on a flight from Sacramento to San Diego. CBS News reported that a union representative wrote on behalf of the flight attendant citing the severity of the injuries.
“This past weekend, one of our flight attendants was seriously assaulted, resulting in injuries to the face and a loss of two teeth,” TWU Local 556 President Lyn Montgomery wrote in a letter to Southwest CEO Gary Kelly. “This unprecedented number of incidents has reached an intolerable level, with passenger non-compliance events also becoming more aggressive in nature.”
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Video shared by CBS News on Twitter has garnered 1.5 million videos since going up on the platform. In the video, the passenger can be seen striking the flight attendant in the face, appearing to draw blood. A fellow passenger came to the flight attendant’s aid, stepping between her and the unruly passenger, and admonishing that passenger.
In the video, the passenger appears to be defending herself in classic she-started-it fashion. At least one other person appears to be defending the passenger; shouts of “She came at her first!” can be heard despite what the video clearly shows.
Southwest confirmed the incident, noting in an emailed statement, “The passenger repeatedly ignored standard inflight instructions and became verbally and physically abusive upon landing. Law enforcement officials were requested to meet the flight upon arrival, and the passenger was taken into custody.”
The Washington Post added in its reporting that the recent wave of unruly passenger behavior has to do, in part, with flight attendants enforcing federal guidelines about wearing facial masks on commercial flights.
“During one recent flight, a passenger called a flight attendant a ‘Nazi’ for requiring a face mask,” that story noted. “In August, a passenger on a SkyWest Airlines flight to Chicago who removed a mask ‘grabbed a flight attendant’s buttock as she walked by the passenger’s row of seats.’”
The Federal Aviation Administration is currently reviewing about 1,300 reports of “unruly behavior” that have taken place aboard commercial flights since February. The agency has, by comparison, previously investigated around 1,300 similar cases over the previous 10 years.
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As CNN reported, there’s one major consequence for Southwest flyers: The decision to resume alcohol service on flights, which was a possibility for next month, is now being pushed back following the recent spate of bad behavior. Sonya Lacore, Southwest’s head of in-flight operations, wrote an internal memo that CNN obtained, “Based on the rise in passenger disruptions in flight, I’ve made the decision to re-evaluate the restart of alcohol service on board.”
*First Published: May 30, 2021, 4:25 am
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