The return and recovery of the airline industry is definitely good news. More passengers are now flying once again with more confidence that air travel is safer. More flight attendants are returning to work. However, this came at a price. More unruly passengers! Hence, flight attendants in the United States are now taught self-defense tactics like how to strike, stomp and subdue a violent attacker.
3,600 cases of unruly passenger incidents just this year
The United States’ Federal Aviation Administration received 100 reports of incidents involving unruly passengers just last week. This has brought the total number to 3,600 since the start of the year. Majority of the victims here are flight attendants, being the people tasked to implement all safety protocols and measures inside the cabin.
In one instance, the FAA said a passenger “tried to open the cockpit door, repeatedly refused to comply with crew members’ instructions, and physically assaulted a flight attendant by striking him in the face and pushing him to the floor.” After crewmembers restrained the passenger in plastic handcuffs, he “freed himself from one of the handcuffs and struck the flight attendant in the face a second time.”
While flight attendants are trained to face and address different uncertainties like medical emergencies on board, emergency evacuations due to fire, and other similar incidents, they now face a new uncertainty. This uncertainty are whether they will be assaulted by an unruly passenger who defies all safety rules and instructions.
What flight attendants learn
According to CNN world, flight attendants were taught a range of skills, from a defensive stance to blows that can be delivered on a would-be hijacker desperate to commandeer the plane.
An instructor used a mannequin to demonstrate a last-resort method of going at an attacker’s eyes. “You are going to possibly die. You need to defend yourself at all costs,” he said. While most encounters will never rise to that level, flight attendants have to be simply trained to face even the most extreme situations which include a hijack.
Generally, flight attendants in the United States are taught a set of basic de-escalation techniques to handle difficult passengers. Examples are the ones who won’t stow a tray table or those who do not follow safety protocols and instructions. However in recent times particularly in the U.S., defiance and violence have accompanied the return of commercial aviation.
Do Philippine-based flight attendants need this?
While cases of passengers physically assaulting flight attendants are very rare in Philippine carriers, it would be best for them to also prepare for the worse. So far, there was only one documented assault where a passenger slapped a flight attendant for not stowing the former’s luggage unto the overhead compartment. The passenger was an abled-person who can stow her luggage by herself. This particular incident gave rise to the #dontliftthatbag movement, an awareness campaign for other flight attendants to refuse orders from abled-passengers to lift their bags into the overhead compartments.
Other Asian airlines like those in China have been teaching flight attendant self-defense for quite some time already. Korean Air flight attendants have already used stun guns on five unruly passengers who were assaulting passengers and crew members.
It is best though that flight attendants all over the world are given self-defense as part of ensuring safety on board in the absence of undercover air martials. Just lately, 99 employees of AirAsia Philippines were signed in as Philippine Air Force reservists and these include flight attendants. While the primary reason is for humanitarian purposes, well, it is definitely hard to mess-up with someone who has been trained in the military.
In other words, lets just behave and follow rules, okay? We need not have situations escalate to incidents which result to injuries and arrests. All we have to do is to follow our flight attendants and to respect other passengers on board.
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