Travel’s “Golden Age” is over — but we can usher in a new one if we all minded our manners.
That’s the message from US Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy, who has launched a new “civility campaign” titled “The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You” ahead of the busy holiday travel season.
According to a U.S. Department of Transportation (DoT) statement, the campaign is intended to “jumpstart a nationwide conversation around how we can all restore courtesy and class to air travel.”
It added: “This won’t just make the travel experience better for the flying public – it will ensure the safety of passengers, gate workers, flight attendants and pilots.”
To back up its argument that air travel manners have flown out of the window, the Department of Transportation claimed that since 2019, the FAA has seen a 400 percent increase in in-flight outbursts, that there have been 13,800 unruly passenger incidents since 2021, and that unruly passenger reports rose by a factor of six between 2020 and 2021.
It also claimed that one in five flight attendants experienced physical incidents in 2021 and that 2024 saw double the number of unruly passenger events compared with 2019.
The campaign includes a video that compares yesteryear flights with modern-day scenes of unruly behavior at airports and on airplanes.
It begins with footage of smartly dressed passengers aboard a jet belonging to BOAC, which operated between 1939 and 1974, with a voiceover saying: “Flying was a bastion of civility. But today…”
We then see a montage of air rage incidents and flying faux pas, including feet being put on seat headrests and someone using their toes to operate a touchscreen TV.
“Things aren’t what they used to be, let’s bring civility and manners back,” says Duffy, who poses “questions every flyer should ask themselves this holiday season to help Americans reach their destinations quickly and comfortably.”
He asks: “Are you helping a pregnant woman or the elderly with placing their bags in the overhead bin? Are you dressing with respect? Are you keeping control of your children and helping them through the airport? Are you saying thank you to your flight attendants? Are you saying please and thank you in general?”
He added: “There’s no question we’ve lost sight of what makes travel fun – the excitement, the relaxation, the cordial conversations. Americans already feel divided and stressed. We can all do our part to bring back civility, manners, and common sense. When we can unite around shared values, we can feel more connected as a country.”
But has air travel really become more unruly?
The statistics presented by the DoT suggest as much, but it’s possible to use the data to paint a particularly shocking picture of unruliness at 38,000ft.
Most of the shocking numbers rely on data from 2021, a year that was a historical anomaly due to federal mask mandates on planes.
According to the FAA, over 70 percent of incidents in 2021 were mask-related.
The statistics also don’t take into account a change in reporting culture among airlines.
In response to the January 6 Capitol riots in January 2021 and associated chaos on DC flights – some rowdy protesters disrupted journeys by continuing to rally in the air as they flew home – along with the rise in mask-rage incidents, FAA Administrator Steve Dickson signed the Zero Tolerance order.
Since then, airlines have been encouraged to report every incident, which may have inflated the FAA statistics on unruly behavior.
It can also be argued that “13,800 incidents since 2021” is fairly low when spread over four years and billions of passengers.
Simon Calder, travel correspondent of The Independent, also points out a wild variance in DoT statistics and those coming from the International Air Transport Association (Iata).
He commented: “I’ve seen some dodgy statistical claims in my time, but this one is exceptional. Iata cites a 2.5 percent annual rise in disruptive passenger incidents worldwide, adjusted for the growing number of flights.
“But the DoT claims at one point in its statement they have doubled since 2019 – and confusingly also claims a five-fold increase. As they say, never trust any statistics unless you have made them up yourself.
“But at least the video has a touch of class, featuring passengers boarding a BOAC jet – a predecessor of British Airways.”
Friday kicks off the busy Thanksgiving holiday travel period (November 21 through December 1), and Airlines for America (A4A) projects that U.S. airlines will carry more than 31 million passengers over the holiday — an all-time high.
Over the holiday period, A4A expects US airlines will fly 2.8 million passengers per day. To meet this demand, U.S. airlines will offer 45,000 more seats daily than they did in 2024.
The busiest days over the Thanksgiving holiday are expected to be Sunday November 30 and Monday December 1.