Responding to Unruly Airline Passengers

Airline passenger travel within Australia has increased over recent years to over 60 million. Airlines are regularly required to respond to and manage unruly passenger incidents. One of Australia’s major airlines estimated it dealt with approximately 30 unruly passenger incidents each month.

The Australian Institute of Criminology recently published a report entitled Responding to Unruly Airline Passengers: The Australian Context (2016).

The report identified there are three groups of unruly passenger:

1. Passengers with a mental health, personality or substance abuse problem;
2. Passengers responding to environmental issues such as temperature, physical confinement or the activities of the crew or other passengers; and
3. Airport or carrier factors such as poor service by ground staff or cabin baggage restrictions.

The report can be reviewed through the following link: http://aic.gov.au/publications/current%20series/tandi/501-520/tandi510.html