Count me as one American who believes the Federal Aviation Administration should push hard for federal legislation that would ban unruly passengers from all domestic commercial air travel.
The FAA has referred 80 cases to the FBI and has asked Congress for legislative remedies to deter future passengers from disrupting flights and putting all their fellow passengers in potential dire peril while on board commercial aircraft.
The 80 cases represent all incidents that have occurred in 2022, which just arrived about six weeks ago. The rate of these incidents is alarming in the extreme.
What has caused the surge in these cases? Hmm. Let’s think about this. Oh, mask mandates have been the cause for more than two-thirds of the incidents. Airlines order passengers to mask up; some passengers are resisting; fights break out on aircraft in mid-air. One flight attendant suffered severe facial injuries after being punched by a passenger.
Here, though, is where this story gets bizarre. Eight Republican U.S. senators have objected to any federal legislation. They have signed a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland, asking him to forgo the criminal referral. They contend foolishly that any federal ban would infringe on Americans’ right to protest mask mandates. How absurd and stupid can these senators get?
I happen to believe in civil disobedience. However, there can be no way in this world you can consider a physical attack on another human being to be “civil.” These attacks, which have spiraled since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, put hundreds of innocent bystanders in potentially mortal danger. If someone, then, is accused and convicted of attacking a flight attendant or of trying to open an airplane door in mid-flight — which did occur in one incident — then by all means they should be banned from traveling via commercial airlines … for the rest of their life!
This form of mayhem has to stop. Thus, the FAA is correct to seek ways to deter future incidents from erupting at 30,000 feet.
