Disruptive behavior on planes is on the increase

The number of people causing a disturbance with serious disruptive behavior on aircraft in the UK  has massively increased from the previous year, according to new figures released by the government. The UK Civil Aviation Authority handles the complaints and they claim that from the 1st of April, 2008 through to the 31st of March 2009, 44 incidents that were labelled as ‘serious’ were reported. This figure is up from 31 for the same period of the year before. On top of an increase in the amount of incidents reported as being ‘serious’, the amount of cases that were considered to be ‘significant’ also increased.

A massive log of 3,485 significant incidences were reported over the same period, and this figure is up significantly on the 2,702 incidents from the year before. A ‘significant’ incident is classed as something that caused staff to be concerned but resulted in no major threat to safety. In contrast, a ‘serious’ incident is one that causes a threat to the safety of the aircraft or people on the aircraft that may have ended in an injury to the aircraft or personnel.

Although there has been a large increase in the number of incidents, figures also show that for every 24,000 flights there is only one incident, a figure that also means that only one incident occurs for every 2.8 million passenger miles that are flown. Other results show that 73 per cent of the perpetrators causing a disruption are male and 76 per cent of the abusive is aimed at the cabin crew.