American Airlines has canceled hundreds of flights through next month, and Southwest is delaying thousands of flights per day. Airports from Charlotte to Austin have warned passengers to arrive three hours early to accommodate packed TSA lines, and all of this is happening amid the backdrop of air travel remaining 23% lower than pre-pandemic traffic.
So given the obvious travesty of taking to the skies these days, it’s a bit rich when airlines, already bailed out by taxpayers to the tune of at least $40 billion during the pandemic, blame booze for a recent surge of passenger fights while in-flight.
“More times than not, [unruly passengers are] exacerbated by the use of alcohol in the terminal or sneaking it on board,” said Paul Hartshorn Jr., the communications chairman for the union representing American Airlines cabin crew. “So those go hand in hand.” American plans to wait until the mask mandate expires before restoring alcohol service. Southwest plans to keep the flights dry indefinitely.
The Federal Aviation Administration has reported more than 3,000 instances of unruly plane passengers this year, 2,300 of which thus far related to the federal face mask mandate for public transportation.
Consider, do you think passengers’ desire to booze at a high altitude has changed dramatically in the past two years, or do you think it’s the longer lines, worse service, and obnoxiously strict mask mandates with no basis in science?
Transportation Security Administration employees subject us to security screenings we have long known do next to nothing to stop terrorist attacks and only after languishing in hourslong lines. Once you finally make it through security, stopping for a cup of coffee or a lunch becomes its own lengthy excursion thanks to capacity restrictions in airports that dissipate once you actually make it on a plane with every seat filled. Then, fully vaccinated adults are made to wear masks while ensuring that their toddlers keep theirs on at the risk of being thrown off a flight they paid hundreds of dollars for. And the airlines would have to believe that a fed-up traveler throwing a fit was triggered by a preflight pint and not the whole fracas that has become the process of boarding a plane.
Flying need not be pleasant, but at minimum, the process must be minimally convenient for the solo business travelers who comprise as much as 75% of the industry’s profits.
It’s much easier for airlines to pretend that alcohol is the culprit because that’s one of the few factors in their immediate control, but if they have any hope of saving the industry before corporate America simply embraces Zoom indefinitely, they have to force staff back to work.
The real problem is obvious. Airlines and the TSA will remain understaffed so long as Congress continues to give people cash not to come to work, and passengers will only grow more pissed as inane mask mandates for fully vaccinated adults and children remain in place. Those are much larger problems than blaming booze, and it’s evident to anyone who has had the misfortune of experiencing today’s fiasco of pandemic flying.
