ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with ever-continuing problems of disruptive passengers and sky rage in aviation. Causes of disruptive passengers and sky rage vary. It is important for flight crews to be able to discern between an upset passenger and a passenger who has potential to cause a serious safety threat to the aircraft, crew and passengers. Understanding some of these issues will help crews deal with this very important safety issue without inadvertently escalating a minor incident into one that jeopardizes safety of the flight. In this chapter, we offer some solutions on how flight crews can deal with issues behind this problem in air travel. We are not going to delve into an exhaustive study of sky rage. For this, we recommend numerous articles written by the press, lawyers, dissertations by post-graduate students, and working groups such as The Skyrage Foundation. In addition, books by our colleagues, Air Rage by Angela Dahlberg, and Air Rage: Crisis in the Skies by Andrew Thomas, provide an in-depth background about the subject. What we present in this chapter is a practical guide for use by crewmembers to help understand the differences between disruptive passengers and sky rage, and deal with either of them.
