Flight Attendant Loses 2 Teeth In Assault By Passenger After Flight Lands In San Diego

Speaker 1: 00:00 The COVID numbers are down, vaccinations are up and people are ready to travel. AAA is Memorial day travel forecast says more than 37 million people are expected to hit the road or take to the skies for a long awaited getaway. But it's how people are acting when they take to the skies that has raised concerns. Recently, a woman was arrested last weekend at San Diego international for allegedly striking a Southwest airlines flight attendant. During a flight from Sacramento, a union spokesman says the flight attendant lost two teeth in the assault. The incident is just one example of a spate of airline passenger unruliness being reported. Joining me is LA times travel writer, Hugo Martine, and Hugo. Welcome. Thanks for having me this story about a passenger knocking out a flight attendant's teeth is really shocking, but it kind of corresponds with a lot of stories about bad passenger behavior. Doesn't it? Yeah. Speaker 2: 01:00 There's been a surge of, of this sort of a problem in the past few months, the FAA reported that, uh, just this week they find five passengers, at least $10,000 each for, you know, unruly behavior. And most of those incidents involve people refusing to wear a mask. And when they were told to, uh, you know, put on their mask, they, they began to, you know, start a big ruckus, a yell, profanity, things like that. And this is just part of a, of a trend, uh, VFA reported to me just a couple of weeks ago that airlines have referred over 1300 incidents to the FAA or potential enforcement. And typically in a typical year, they only get about 180 cases that they actually enforce. So it's a huge increase. Speaker 1: 01:53 And what kinds of things have been happening? A lot Speaker 2: 01:56 Of it revolves around, uh, around the mask mandate, which, you know, the, the DOD still requires people to wear masks on planes. And a lot of the incidents involve people refusing to wear the mask or drinking heavily and then refusing to wear the mask and getting belligerent and, uh, starting the, you know, some scene with the other passengers. And typically, um, you know, if, if the flight hasn't left the gate, they'll just take the person off right there. And if they're mid-flight, they'll wait until they land and then have law enforcement come on and take those people off. Speaker 1: 02:30 And what are the COVID restrictions about masking and social distancing that are still in place for airline travel? Speaker 2: 02:37 It's still required that you wear a mask throughout the duration of the flight, uh, except for when eating or drinking early on. When the pandemic first took off in 2020, a lot of the airlines try to do some physical distancing on the plane by leaving like the middle seat vacant, but as demand for air travel is increased. You know, that policy has gone away on all the airlines are now just filling as many seats as passengers want in the terminals. They are trying to continue to impose some kind of physical distancing, especially on the lines on the cues when people line up to get on the planes. But once on the planes, there's really not a whole lot. You could do as far as physical distancing. Speaker 1: 03:20 And you mentioned about the FAA coming out this week with those big fines, for the people who didn't wear masks. Is that going to be the case going forward? In other words, if people don't wear masks on planes while it's required, are they going to get hit with those fines too? Speaker 2: 03:35 Yeah. The, the mandate has been extended to September 13th. So as far as we know, that's how far into the future the FAA is going to impose this. Now the problem has gotten so bad that the FAA instituted a zero tolerance policy a few months ago. And so what that did was previously, if you caused a wreck us on a plane, you became unruly, they might recommend that you seek therapy, or they would ban you from a flight. The FAA has said, you know, it's now a zero tolerance policy. And once you do this, you're definitely going to get imposed for some kind of fine. And the fines could go up to $35,000. So they're pretty steady. Speaker 1: 04:18 Now I've heard several people say that flying today has just become an unpleasant experience. As you said, middle seats are full again, and people seem angry. Is that what you've been here? Speaker 2: 04:30 Yeah. And it is a little scary. I mean, for most of us, you know, that we, we haven't done these sort of things for, you know, months on end. And, and so there's a lot of anxiety. You know, the airlines have also started to go back to pre pandemic policy, such as, you know, charging for change fees. Uh, you know, if you change your reservations, other things like that, that they had waived during the pandemic or during the start of the pandemic, they waived a lot of these things. They're starting to impose them again. So it's starting to, as I said, in my story, airlines are starting to act like airlines again. So that is I'm sure contributed to it, but just the sort of anxiety about getting back on a plane, uh, I'm sure is, is hitting a lot of people, Speaker 1: 05:14 Bring it down to the ground for a minute and talk about travel destinations like Disneyland. It's open now for out-of-state visitors. Speaker 2: 05:24 Yeah. They just announced that. And so starting today, you could start booking reservations for Disneyland. If you're outside of California, the date is June 15th. When out of state visitors can actually enter the park, but you could start today to buy your tickets Speaker 1: 05:41 And what will be the criteria for masking and social distancing at Disneyland after June 15th, will there be any requirement? Speaker 2: 05:50 The state is announced that starting on June 15, they will lift most of the restrictions at theme. So the capacity limits that have been imposed since April are going to be gone. Uh, so the parks could let in as many people as they want the restrictions on physical distancing will be gone previously. They said, you know, if you're an aligned for the matter horn or any of the other rides, you have to stand six feet away from other park visitors that requirement's going to go away. They had a requirement that said that rides that put people inside for 15 minutes or more that's going away. So pretty much all the restrictions that have been imposed on theme parks are lifting on June 15th. The only one that isn't changing is the mask mandate. Now the CDC recommends that people wear masks. The CDC also recommends that people that go to theme parks be vaccinated or show a negative test results for a COVID test. But the theme parks, the only thing that they're requiring is the masks. So, so far Disneyland says they're not going to require people to show proof of vaccination or poop of a negative COVID test, but they are going to require people to wear masks during the visits to the park. Now, do Speaker 1: 07:05 You have any tips on particularly good places to visit for what is really many people's first holiday weekends, since the pandemic, as Speaker 2: 07:14 You mentioned, the auto club did a survey and they found that most people are going to be doing road trips, especially here in Southern California road. Trips are going to be big because as we talked about, people are still anxious about flying, getting cooped up in a cabin with hundreds of other strangers. So there'll be a lot of road trips. And a lot of national parks, Zion is a big place, a Yosemite, all these places are really becoming very popular. And I mean, the weather is great and people feel like, you know, they feel safer if they're outdoors. So yeah, I'm anticipating, and I think most people are that, uh, this will be the summer of the road trip and the summer over the national parks. Speaker 1: 07:52 Interesting. Okay. I've been speaking with LA times travel writer, Hugo Martine, you go, thank you so much. All right. Thanks for having me. Speaker 3: 08:08 [inaudible].