Air travel is a stressful event for anyone: long waits at the airport, the ever-present threat of delayed flights, and cramped seats can easily cause temperaments to run short.
All that is made worse during the holidays, as the number of travelers soars. But what can make a flight even worse than the unavoidable unpleasantries are, simply put, travel jerks. These are travelers who are rude to one another, short-tempered with airport staff, and disrespectful to flight attendants.
Now, ahead of the holiday travel season, which kicks off next week, the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) is launching a new campaign to inspire civility in travelers. Here’s what you need to know.
Transportation Secretary urges civility in the friendly skies
On Wednesday, U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy announced a new campaign titled “The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You.” The DOT says the campaign is designed to get the country talking about “how we can all restore courtesy and class to air travel.”
Announcing the new campaign, which kicks off with a 90-second YouTube video, the DOT highlighted data that it says backs up the popular perception that traveling on planes has become more unruly in recent years.
According to the agency, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has seen more than a 400% increase in in-flight outbursts since 2019. These outbursts include everything from “disruptive behavior to outright violence.”
The agency says that between 2020 and 2021, reports of unruly behavior rose more than six times. In 2021 alone, 20% of flight attendants experienced “physical incidents,” and since 2021, 13,800 unruly passenger incidents have been reported.
Most recently, the DOT says, 2024 saw double the number of unruly passenger events when compared to 2019, the year before the pandemic, when traveling was decidedly less stressful.
If you want a peek at some of the worst unruly passenger incidents, the latter half of the DOT campaign video, embedded below, showcases alarming ones caught on camera.
For 2025, the FAA’s data shows that there have so far been 1,431 unruly passenger reports as of November 16. About 10% of those—142—had investigations opened into them by authorities. They resulted in 125 enforcement actions, which have included $2.1 million in fines.
For the most recent week of November 16, the FAA says there were 1.4 unruly passengers reported for every 10,000 flights. However, while the agency notes that the rate of unruly passenger incidents has dropped more than 80% since early 2021 record highs, it concedes that “recent increases show there remains more work to do.”
DOT’s advice on how to be a more civil flyer
In the DOT’s civility campaign video, Transportation Secretary Duffy offered five questions people can ask themselves to determine if they are “Americans reach their destinations as quickly, efficiently and comfortably as possible.” Those questions include:
- Are you helping a pregnant woman or the elderly with placing their bags in the overhead bin?
- Are you dressing with respect?
- Are you keeping control of your children and helping them through the airport?
- Are you saying thank you to your flight attendants?
- Are you saying please and thank you in general?
Given the latest holiday travel data from the American Automobile Association (AAA), over 6 million passengers will need to ask themselves these questions begining next week. The AAA is forecasting that the Thanksgiving holiday travel season, which runs from Tuesday, November 25 to Monday, December 1, will see 6.07 million people take to the skies.
That’s 2.1% more than the 5.94 million individuals who flew during Thanksgiving week 2024, and 14.9% more than the number of individuals who flew during the 2019 Thanksgiving travel period.