- The Federal Aviation Administration logged more than 5,300 flight disturbances this year.
- The vast majority are categorized as “mask-related incidents.”
- AG Merrick Garland instructed prosecutors in a memo to step up and coordinate enforcement during the holidays.
Federal prosecutors should increase their efforts to hold passengers responsible for threats and violence that occur on flights during the holiday season, US Attorney General Merrick Garland said Wednesday.
In a two-page memo to US attorneys, Garland said the Department of Justice was “concerned about a rise in criminal behavior” on commercial flights.
As of November 23, the Federal Aviation Administration had logged 5,338 reports of unruly passengers this year, over 70% of which were listed as “mask-related incidents.” The FAA launched investigations into more than a thousand of the cases, compared to just 146 investigations in 2019.
But just 266 of those incidents have resulted in enforcement actions — the FAA itself…