While only a small minority of the 4.3 billion passengers that travel by air each year provoke incidents, any incident is one too many and the industry is pursuing a zero-tolerance approach. According to IATA 2017 statistics, 1 disruptive incident is reported every 1,053 flights (vs. 1 incident for every 1,424 flights in 2016).
Here were the top 3 onboard issues in 2017:
Even committing an assault on board doesn’t guarantee the aggressor will be prosecuted. Under existing international law (The Tokyo Convention 1963), it is the authorities in the State where the aircraft is registered that have jurisdiction over offenses committed onboard. Translated into a concrete example, if an unruly passenger assaults a crew member on a UK registered aircraft flying from London to Athens, the passenger will subsequently be delivered to the authorities upon landing in Greece. But because the aircraft is UK registered, it is the UK laws and police that have jurisdiction over the incident, but they are over 4 hours and 2,500 kilometres away. In these cases, the majority of unruly passengers are simply released.
For Froilan Blanco, Lieutenant in Spain’s Guardia Civil, “the unification of unruly passengers management proceedings is vital to deal with a problem that severely affects Europe. The Guardia Civil’s position is to support the unification of documentation across Europe in order to handle any request made from the pilot on unruly passengers on board since the moment the aircraft lands”.
In 2014, following intense advocacy efforts from our industry, States recognized the need to close this gap in international law and agreed on the ICAO Montreal Protocol 2014, more commonly referred to as MP14.
MP14 gives the State of scheduled landing the necessary jurisdiction to deal with unruly passengers. It also covers third-party countries in case a flight is re-routed. While this does not guarantee that a passenger will be prosecuted it does remove one of the key reasons for unruly passengers not to be punished for their misconduct.
Currently, 21 out of the 22 states required to bring the Protocol into force have ratified it. Turkey, Kazakhstan and Paraguay have been the most recent states to commit. Funda Calisir, IATA Area Manager for Turkey, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Central Asia notes, “As the 7th largest international market, Turkey’s ratification of MP14 is very welcome, as it gives legitimacy to the protocol and it will enable Turkey to play an active role in dealing with an increasingly important threat to passenger wellbeing and safety”.
If MP14 ratification is important to enhance the international deterrent, preventing disruptive incidents in the first place is essential.
In recent years airlines have introduced policies and procedures for handling disruptive passengers. Ground and cabin crew training now includes de-escalation techniques, safe service of alcohol, and restraint.
IATA actively collaborates with stakeholders to ensure other parties in the value chain understand their vital role in preventing incidents, for example that airport bars, restaurants and duty-free outlets sell alcohol responsibly.
Other industry efforts include raising awareness among the general public and the entire aviation value chain, with the "One Too Many" and "Not on My Flight" campaigns launched respectively by a consortium in the UK and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA).
We encourage other European governments to develop the same type of prevention tools - and ratifying MP14 ia a good start!
