The Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday it will be imposing stricter penalties against unruly and combative airline passengers after last week’s siege on the U.S. Capitol building.
Steve Dickson, the FAA administrator, signed an order Wednesday for “a special emphasis enforcement program” to bring civil legal enforcement of fines of up to $35,000 and possible addition to the Transportation Security Administration’s no-fly list for “passengers who assault, threaten, intimidate or interfere with a crewmember in the performance of a crewmember’s duties” following an increase of such behavior directed at staff.
The agency historically would issue warnings and counseling but due to the increase in unruly behavior it has abandoned that practice for civil penalties under the new program, which runs until March 30, the FAA said in a statement.
“The FAA has recently observed a proliferation of such conduct, including conduct stemming from failure to wear masks in response to the COVID-19 pandemic-related health measures in place on board aircraft or conduct following the Jan. 6, 2021, violence on the U.S. Capitol,” the order states. “This bulletin announces an FAA special emphasis enforcement program to more effectively address and deter such conduct by passengers.”
On Tuesday, FBI Washington Field Office ADIC Steven D’Antuono told reporters that the FBI is considering all tools and that adding those who stormed the Capitol building last week to a no-fly list is “something we’re actively looking at.”
Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. on Tuesday also called for authorities to add those who breached the building to the TSA’s no-fly list.
“We cannot allow these same insurrectionists to get on a plane and cause more violence and more damage,” he said during a press conference. “These individuals are a threat to the homeland.”
On Monday, Rep. Bennie G. Thompson, D-Miss., chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security and ranking committee member Rep. John Katko, R-N.Y., sent a letter to TSA Administrator David Pekoske calling for a briefing by the end of the week on its efforts to “disrupt the travel of White supremacist and other domestic terrorist groups” and “options available for quickly denying air carrier service to individuals as posing a potential threat.”
The FAA said it does not have regulatory authority over aviation security or no-fly lists, but it does work closely with the agencies that do “on any reported security threats that may impact aviation safety,” it said.
The FAA has taken more than 1,300 enforcement actions against unruly passengers in the past decade, including having the TSA in December level fines against two airline passengers, one for $15,000 against a passenger who assaulted a flight attendant and the other for $7,000 for interfering with a flight attendant. Both passengers exhibited such behaviors after being instructed to wear masks in August.
“Flying is the safest mode of transportation and I signed this order to keep it that way,” Dickson said in a statement.
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Next thing you know, they’re going to put up checkpoints on the roads between states… “Papers, citizen?”
Don’t laugh but what do you think those new licenses we are being made to carrier so we can fly without having a passport are all about.
Exactly. AND you can bet, if you don’t have your mark of the beast (YOUR vaccine card), you won’t be allowed to travel…
Big Brother has been lurking in the shadows, but now his mask is off. He is the Democrat Party. The Left are masters at manipulation; now they’re tying in the Capitol trespass to unruly flight passengers. Brilliant! It keeps the “siege” in the public eye and makes it seem perfectly reasonable to bar conservatives from airline travel.
For a good 2 decades, if i could avoid flyin (cause of their cruddy as hell customer service), i would do so..
THIS IS CERTAINLY not making me want to rush out and go back to flying, any time soon.
So, with the airline industry in desperate financial straits, the authoritarian moron in charge of the FAA is imposing more regulations and penalties that will cause many more of us to eschew flying in the future. Brilliant!
You can’t fix stupid.. AND IMO this is exactly what this is!
Who wins by controlling the movements and free thought of an American free people? Who would actually move to control movements of any and all successful self-governing Americans to out them on hit lists for later identification and accommodation by the state? Individual weak National Socialists, disguised as Democrats, more than bordering on, but crossing the border into American Communism, who can only collectively seize power by forming oppressive collectives of political gangsters, where if the protection money is not paid in advance, and the party line mouthed to their woeful tunes of faux humanitarianism, your business, your personal property, and your job, the very security which separates you from their control is attacked, then disappears. This is basic socialist gangsterism 101, and certainly not anything new. When it comes to oppression and acts that kill liberty, what goes around eventually comes around, like the equal and opposite reaction in our Capitol buildings that was the response to the previous Liberal attacks on the Whitehouse, and our Democrat run cities which Washington itself is now a violent reflected image of what National Socialism brings to a nation. American terrorist Lad Biden had better stop it before he becomes the victim of it, along with his Veep first lady socialist useful idiot used to take down our American lady liberty herself.
Who wins? THE Commies do of course.
Since all of us, who are Trump supporters are “white supremacists”, we will not be able to fly anymore. “Sieg Heil”, to the Nazi’s and communists running our government. Here come the re-education camps, where we have to get on our hands and knees to worship the government / false gods. I think the FBI should be put on the no fly list, as they tried a coup against Trump.
ALONG with the DOIJ, and the DNC!
What about fines for unruly flight attendants ??? I’ve seen quite a few .
AND whom exactly gets to determine what IS or isn’t unruley???
some day you can tell your grand kids a story on how nice it was living in america before the rats took over!
ASSUMING You live long enough to have grand kids!