Word: airing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Unfortunately, Handy, who's out on bail pending an investigation in Spain, isn't the only traveler venting air rage. Ten days ago, a drunken, unruly Finnish passenger on a Malev Hungarian flight died after the crew reportedly strapped him to his seat and injected him with tranquilizers...
...season at hand, stressed-out travelers with less room to stretch are increasingly directing their anger at flight crews, punching an attendant, head butting a co-pilot or trying to break into the cockpit. "Passenger interference is the most pervasive security problem facing airlines," Captain Stephen Luckey of the Air Line Pilots Association testified before Congress. Though still relatively small, the number of incidents is estimated to have at least doubled in recent years. Nearly a thousand episodes took place within U.S. jurisdiction last year...
...airlines are finally fighting back. Leading the way is Richard Branson, chairman of Virgin Atlantic Airways. In the aftermath of the assault on Weir, who required 18 stitches, Branson engineered a British lifetime air-travel ban on Handy. As the industry convened last month in London to address the overall problem, he urged carriers to establish a worldwide air-rage database to blacklist the worst offenders. "There [must] be a deterrent against this behavior," Branson says...
Some carriers have already taken action. Northwest Airlines has permanently blacklisted three violent travelers from flying. Yet prosecuting air rage isn't easy; many countries have no jurisdiction over a passenger who arrives on a foreign airline. In the U.S., the Justice Department is working harder to convict defendants; last summer a man who threw hot coffee on a flight attendant and tried to open an emergency door was fined $10,000 and sentenced to three years in prison. This fall British Airways began handing out "warning cards" to anyone getting dangerously out of control. Some airlines include a pair...
...Meanwhile, says Thompson, Iraqi warplanes haven't budged, and ground installations haven't fired a single surface-to-air missile at their assailants. "Saddam knows from eight years ago that whatever he uses, he'll lose," he says. "He seems determined to curl up in a little ball until this is over." That end might come by Sunday. Then again, it might...