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How the FAA is stopping outbursts on airplanes

Did you fly this summer? Any unruly passengers on your flight? If so, they were part of a growing trend of passengers acting up on flights. By January 2021, outbursts had become such an issue that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) implemented a zero-tolerance policy against disruptive behavior. This policy was supposed to be temporary — the administration instead made it permanent in April 2022. As summer travel winds down, here’s a look at fines and legal actions against unruly passengers before and after the policy.

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  • The FAA received 5,973 reports of unruly passengers in 2021, up 492% from the 1,009 reports the year prior. But the increase isn’t just due to people returning to the skies post COVID-19: there were 1,161 incidents in 2019, 899 in 2018, and 544 in 2017.

  • Nearly 75% of reported incidents from January 2021 to August 2021 involved passengers refusing to comply with the federal face mask mandate. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention enacted this mandate on February 1, 2021. An April 18, 2022, court order rendered it unenforceable.

The FAA levied $100,000 in fines against unruly passengers in 2017. That reached $600,000 by 2019 and $8.4 million by 2022.

  • While overall reports of unruly passengers have decreased year over year from the 2021 peak, cases of the FAA pursuing legal action rose from 350 in 2021 to 567 in 2022. Fines levied against passengers were also up from $5 million in 2021 to $8.4 million in 2022.

  • The FAA’s largest fine under its zero-tolerance policy thus far has been $81,950 against a woman who assaulted a flight attendant and tried to open the aircraft’s cabin door. The FAA can also refer cases to the FBI for criminal prosecution.


What’s behind Congressional plans for a new no-fly list? Find out here.

A snapshot of labor in the US

Yesterday marked Labor Day, a holiday dedicated to American workers and the contributions they've made to the country’s strength and prosperity. Aging populations, automation, pandemic recovery, social movements, and many other factors influence the labor market; here are data and reports that give a snapshot of labor in the United States.

  • The labor force participation rate is 0.7 percentage points below the February 2020 rate of 63.3, but 62.6 is the highest it’s been since the start of the pandemic — and it’s been at that rate since April of this year. (Labor force participation is the percentage of the civilian noninstitutional population 16 or older in the labor force.)

  • When accounting for inflation, workers’ average hourly earnings were down 1.7% in December 2022 compared to a year prior. Earnings fell in all industries except information and leisure & hospitality, where they were flat.

There were 424 work stoppages in 1974. There were 23 in 2022.

  • There’s been an average of 16 annual large-scale work stoppages over the past decade. In contrast, the 1970s had an annual average of 289 large-scale work stoppages.

  • Union membership has been down since the 1980s. In 1983, the US had 17.7 million union workers, making up about 20% of employees overall. In 2022, there were 14.3 million, or about 10% of employees.

  • In 2022, 120,600 employees were involved in work stoppages, down 85% from 795,000 in 1980 and down 95% from nearly 2.5 million in 1970. (For data behind two ongoing high-profile work stoppages — the Hollywood actors and writers strikes, click here.)

Get jobs and employment data, including median wages by occupation, unemployment insurance, and more. Then learn more about how common labor strikes are in the US.

Data behind the news

Several Southern states are grappling with flooding post Hurricane Idalia — both the damage caused by the storm and the cost of flood insurance premiums. 

Officials are investigating the August 26 shooting in Jacksonville, Florida as a hate crime. USAFacts has the data behind hate crimes in the United States.

Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services selected the first drugs for Medicare price negotiations under the Inflation Reduction Act. Many of them are the same drugs outlined in this article, including Eliquis, Xarelto, and Jardiance. 

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One last fact

Space Force's 2023 budget was $26.2 billion. The DOD's 2023 budget is $837.0B overall.

The five-year plan for establishing the US Space Force includes creating a headquarters within the Pentagon (FY 2020), transferring select existing missions to Space Force (FY 2021–2022), and developing new ways to organize, train, and equip its forces (2023–2024).