DALLAS — A DFW International Airport passenger was fined $23,000 by the Federal Aviation Administration for reportedly striking an American Airlines flight attendant after becoming upset that her seat didn’t recline.
The woman, who was not named, “verbally abused flight attendants after she realized her assigned seat would not recline” and then declined to switch seats with multiple passengers and “kept yelling at flight attendants,” the air safety agency said Wednesday.
The altercation took place March 11 on a flight between DFW Airport and Aspen, Colorado.
The FAA said it has already received more than 5,000 complaints of unruly passengers this year, including more than 100 acts of violence against flight crews. Flight attendants at Fort Worth-based American Airlines and Dallas-based Southwest Airlines have been the alleged victims of high-profile assaults from passengers, each resulting in federal charges.
Among the 10 fines doled out Wednesday, the FAA reported that three took place on American Airlines flights and three more on Southwest Airlines flights.
In the incident with the passenger flying from DFW to Aspen, the woman did switch seats but then continued verbally abusing flight attendants, according to the FAA. “She then struck a flight attendant on the right forearm, and attempted to do so again.”
The woman also refused to comply with federal face mask requirements.
During a separate encounter in January, a woman shoved an American Airlines flight attendant in the chest while being removed from a plane for refusing to wear a face mask. She was fined $24,000.
On a Horizon Air flight from Austin to San Francisco in May, a woman refused to follow instructions to buckle her seatbelt, punched and screamed at her husband and son and distracted flight attendants.
“She threw trash at a flight attendant, and snatched…