An evaluation into the causes of perpetual disruptive passenger behavior

There is a rising trend in the number of disruptive airline passenger reports filed to the International Air Transport Association’s Incident Data eXchange and National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Aviation Safety Reporting System over the past 20 years. Passenger behavioral safety is vital for the comfort, well-being, and safety of other passengers, crew, and an airline’s smooth operations. Safety culture has been shown to impact the implementation and efficiency of safety management systems. This paper has evaluated the relationship between disruptive passenger occurrences and the intentions of a safety management system, through the lens of safety culture. An analysis of disruptive passenger reports from National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Aviation Safety Reporting System gave evidence of the consequential actions taken against disruptive passengers There was a tendency for disruptive passengers to either not be dealt consequences, or be subject to consequences that are not in full alignment with the concept of a robust safety culture. This perpetuated a sense that company support was lacking for frontline staff. It also potentially created an awareness amongst passengers that disruptive behaviors on aircraft were not statistically an arrestable offence. This reduces the efficiency of threat of punishment as a deterrent.