Air New Zealand is seeing a disturbing trend towards unacceptable passenger behaviour, filing nearly 200 reports and banning up to 10 customers per month for disruptive incidents ranging from failure to follow crew instructions to onboard intoxication and even physical abuse.
While there’s been a slight uptick in unruly passenger reports over the past three years, Air New Zealand noted that the severity and impact of these incidents have increased.
It reflects an International Air Transport Association (IATA) report on a global increase in unruly passenger incidents.
The latest IATA figures showed one unruly incident reported for every 568 flights in 2022, up from one per 835 flights in 2021.
The most common incidents in 2022 were non-compliance, verbal abuse and intoxication. Non-compliance issues included smoking on board, failure to fasten seatbelts, not storing luggage when asked and consumption of own alcohol.
Physical abuse incidents were infrequent but saw an alarming increase of 61 per cent over 2021, occurring once every 17,200 flights.
Keep calm and carry-on on Air NZ
Ahead of the busy holiday season, the carrier is asking customers to embrace the spirit of Christmas and show respect to fellow passengers and crew.
Air NZ Chief Operational Integrity & Safety Officer Captain David Morgan said: “Air New Zealanders, who work both on the ground and in the air, work extremely hard to ensure our customers have a safe journey with us, but over the past few years, we’ve seen an increase in some customers not showing them the respect they deserve.”
“The large majority of our customers are fantastic and treat people with courtesy and respect but unfortunately, some people who fly with us refuse to follow instructions, verbally abuse other people or are disruptive. We’ve recently also seen instances of people being physically abusive.
“We have zero tolerance for such behaviour and will take action to ensure abusive customers are no longer able to travel with us if needed to ensure the safety of our team and customers.”
Air New Zealand issues between five and 10 ban letters to customers each month for a range of disruptive and unacceptable behaviours. These range from 24 hours to permanent bans from travelling on Air New Zealand services.
For more info, head to airnewzealand.com.au
