Air travel is a stressful event for anyone: long waits at the airport, the ever-present threat of delayed flights and cramped seats can easily make tempers fray.
All this worsens during the holidays, when the number of travelers increases. But what can make a flight even worse than the inevitable discomforts are, simply put, the jerks of travel. These are travelers who are rude to each other, short-tempered to airport staff, and disrespectful to flight attendants.
Now, ahead of the holiday travel season, which begins next week, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is launching a new campaign to inspire civility in travelers. Here’s what you need to know.
Secretary of Transportation urges civility in friendly skies
On Wednesday, US Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced a new campaign titled “The golden age of travel starts with you.” The DOT says the campaign is designed to get the country talking about “how we can all restore civility and class to air travel.”
In announcing the new campaign, which begins with a 90-second video on YouTube, the DOT highlighted data it says supports the popular perception that air travel has become more unruly in recent years.
According to the agency, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has seen a more than 400% increase in in-flight outbursts since 2019. These outbursts include everything from “disruptive behavior to outright violence.”
The agency says that between 2020 and 2021, reports of unruly behavior increased more than six-fold. In 2021 alone, 20% of flight attendants experienced “physical incidents,” and since 2021, 13,800 incidents with unruly passengers have been reported.
More recently, the DOT says, 2024 saw twice as many unruly passenger events compared to 2019, the year before the pandemic, when travel was decidedly less stressful.
If you want a look at some of the worst incidents of unruly passengers, the second half of the DOT campaign video, included below, shows some alarming ones caught on camera.
By 2025, the FAA data shows that so far there have been 1,431 reports of unruly passengers as of November 16. Around 10% of them (142) had open investigations by the authorities. They resulted in 125 enforcement actions, including $2.1 million in fines.
During the most recent week of Nov. 16, the FAA says 1.4 unruly passengers were reported per 10,000 flights. However, while the agency notes that the rate of unruly passenger incidents has dropped more than 80% from record highs in early 2021, it admits that “recent increases show there is still work to be done.”
DOT’s advice on how to be a more civilized traveler
In DOT’s civility campaign video, Transportation Secretary Duffy offered five questions people can ask themselves to determine whether “Americans are getting to their destinations as quickly, efficiently and comfortably as possible.” Those questions include:
- Are you helping a pregnant woman or an elderly person put their suitcases in the overhead compartment?
- Do you dress respectfully?
- Do you keep control of your children and help them at the airport?
- Are you thanking your flight attendants?
- Are you saying please and thank you in general?
Based on the latest holiday travel data from the American Automobile Association (AAA), more than 6 million passengers will need to ask themselves these questions starting next week. He AAA is forecasting that the Thanksgiving travel season, which runs from Tuesday, November 25 to Monday, December 1, will see 6.07 million people take to the skies.
That’s 2.1% more than the 5.94 million people who flew during the 2024 Thanksgiving week and 14.9% more than the number of people who flew during the 2019 Thanksgiving travel period.
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