NO Fly List, Yes Please

Recently the president of Delta asked to government to help create a National “No Fly List,” for unruly passengers and I am all for it. Yes, Delta can create its own list of passengers who they will no longer allow to fly on their planes, but there is nothing stopping that bad acting person from turning around and flying on a different airline.

I read that there were 6,500 people in the last year who were unruly and 4,200 of them were fighting about having to put the mask on. If mask mandates get lifted for people flying that would still mean that there could be 2,300 unruly people who need to be banned. Flight attendants have taken the brunt of abuse and need to not have to be subjected to proven problem flyers.

From my life of flying I can say that as time goes on passengers get less and less courteous and more and more rude. I am not sure that the tide is ever going to turn on this situation. The best we can do is not allow people to be double or triple offenders. Once you have punched a flight attendant or ignored requests to take your seat and buckle up, but instead are heading to the cockpit, your time on planes has come to an end.

Airlines have to keep all the crew and passengers’ lives safe and have a fairly good track record doing it. The rules about flying are fairly clear. You don’t get to decide you don’t want to wear a seat belt because if the plane hit turbulence you could fly up in the air and come down on top of someone else. I have been a plane that dropped 10,000 feet shortly after takeoff and it’s not pretty.

Someone made the argument that many of the unruly flyers are drunk. If you are so afraid of flying that you have to drink five scotches in the airport before you get on the plane, then you need to drive. I have been on too many flights coming home from some island and the passengers were making the most of their all-inclusive resort before getting to the airport. There is nothing worse than flying with a bunch of drunks who are mad they have to go home. Maybe we need a rule that you need to not be drunk to even get on the plane. Then we probably don’t need the NO Fly List.

I wouldn’t mind going back to the days when people dressed up to get on the plane and acted like ladies and gentlemen. I really don’t love boarding behind the girl who is making sure the whole plane gets a good look at her new tramp stamp, with her white girl braids and sun burned scalp screaming at her boyfriend. Then they fight with each other as if she caught him with her best friend in their trailer when she got home from work. Please try and act like you have all your important teeth when you fly, even if you don’t.

As for people flying who should be in an institution, if only Ronald Reagan hadn’t closed them all, if you are on all the right meds flying can be safe for you. Please don’t chose the day you are flying to not take your meds. If you forgo them and then do something bad on the plane, it is not excuse that you forgot to take them.

Maybe we need signs on the way to the airport, “Took your meds?” “If you are too drunk to drive you are too drunk to Fly, even if you are just a passenger.”

The American public who has proven that they don’t care enough about your fellow citizens to wear a mask then they probably don’t care about the safety of fellow flyers. So it’s time to regulate the selfish off the planes.