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- The Transportation Security Administration will restart self-defense classes for flight crews from July, it said Thursday.
- The training, paused during the pandemic, would "deter assaults against officers and flight crew," it said.
- Flight attendants told Insider earlier in June that they felt burnt out from dealing with aggressive passengers.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Flight attendants will get self-defense training from July to stop violent passengers assaulting staff, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) announced in a Thursday press release.
The voluntary training, led by federal air marshals, was paused during the pandemic, but the TSA said it was bringing the classes back to "deter assaults against officers and flight crew."
Flight attendants told Insider earlier in June that they felt burnt out from dealing with aggressive passengers as travel bounced back.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has so far reported more than 3,000 incidents of unruly passenger behavior in 2021, most involving travelers refusing to comply with the federal mask mandate.
The FAA has opened 487 investigations into passenger incidents – more than triple the number from 2019, before the pandemic started, and the highest number since the agency started listing its investigations in 1995.
The TSA said passengers had also assaulted security staff, noting two separate cases this month where it said TSA airport officers were attacked. In one incident, a traveller bit two officers and faces a $13,910 civil fine, the TSA said.
The TSA said in the press release that it may "pursue criminal charges and a civil penalty up to the maximum allowable by law" for unruly passengers.
Airports welcomed 2.1 million air passengers on June 20, up from 590,456 for the same day in 2020, and the highest number since March 7 last year, according to TSA data.