FAA announces big fines in latest round of civil penalties with half involving face mask violations

FAA announces big fines in latest round of civil penalties with half involving face mask violations | Secret Flying

Half of the cases involve face-mask violations.

 

An in-flight incident over a seatbelt has led to the largest fine in the Federal Aviation Administration’s latest round of civil penalties.

 

The FAA allege that on a flight from Austin, Texas to San Francisco last May, a Horizon Air passenger refused to follow instructions to fasten her seatbelt, before punching her son and husband.

 

When more flight attendants intervened, the unnamed woman threw trash at them and “snatched cookies from a nearby passenger.”

 

She is now facing a $32,000 fine and has 30 days to respond to the charges.

 

In another incident, a woman who struck a flight attendant on an American Airlines flight earlier this year has been slapped with a $23,000 fine by the FAA.

 

The passenger on the March flight from Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport to Aspen reportedly refused to wear a face mask and “verbally abused flight attendants after she realized her assigned seat would not recline.”

 

The woman rebuffed several offers by fellow passengers to switch seats before finally accepting a trade, the release states, but “then struck a flight attendant on the right forearm, and attempted to do so again.”

 

The incident are only two of ten cases of alleged assault aboard US planes leading to a total of $225,287 in civil penalties that the FAA announced on Wednesday.

 

Half of the ten cases involved violations of the FAA’s face-masking regulations.

 

Unruly passenger cases spiked after the US introduced a mask mandate on airplanes and in airports on February 1. The mandate is set to remain in place until at least January next year.

 

So far in 2021, the FAA has reported 5,114 unruly passenger incidents, 73% of which were mask-related.