A bipartisan Senate proposal that would toughen penalties for
unruly airline passengers is receiving lusty huzzahs from the
flight attendant community. If passed, the bill would ban these
pains-in-the-air from flying for up to a full year.
Excepting the self-evident obnoxiousness of the lei-clad,
over-mai-taied flier who feels that the only place to properly
execute an air-hula is from atop a tray table, I have to wonder how
incidents of passenger unruliness will be judged objectively. If I
feel that I am being treated unfairly by a flight attendant and
speak up, does that make me unruly?
Maybe a piece of turnabout legislation is needed to balance the
equation here. Should passengers have the right to take obnoxious
flight attendants into custody? Visions of a begoggled Barney Fife,
cuffing an offensive attendant to the beverage cart while yelling
"Citizen's arrest! Citizens arrest!" are dancing through my mind as
I consider the idea.