Super jumbo jets could createsuper problem passengers
By Philip Coste
PARIS, (AFP) - Commercial airlines foreseea huge rise in incidents of air rage when new 800-seat super-jumbojets are introduced in 2006 and are busy planning how to dealwith more verbal abuse, threats and violence from passengers,already running at record levels.
"In 1997, 400 incidents were recorded.In 1999 there were 3,102," an Air France doctor told LesEntretiens de Bichat, a Paris medical symposium.
Sixty percent of the cases involve physicalviolence, while 20 percent are cases of verbal abuse and another20 percent incidents of objects being thrown, the doctor said.
Many incidents took place in airport departurehalls. Enraged passengers "grab whatever is to hand -- advertisingbrochures or even computer keyboards," the Air France doctorcontinued.
Traffic jams on the way to the airport,check-in and security delays, technical hitches, weather problems,and, increasingly, overbooking, all contributed to passenger rage.
Alcohol, often in liberal amounts, and tobaccodeprivation were the main cause of outbursts in flight. Rude,argumentative and unruly passengers and parents who could notcontrol their children were also on the increase.
"Until a year ago you could still inviteproblem passengers on to the flight deck, isolating them untilthey calmed down. But for security reasons that is no longer anoption," the doctor said.
Ironically since the September 11, 2001terror attacks in the United States, the number of passenger incidentshas dropped by 10 percent and they have been less serious. Ofcourse this is due in part to the numbers of passengers decreasingin the wake of the suicide plane hijackings.
Those figures are probably only a blip.The prospect of the mammoth new airliners carrying 800 peopleeach, almost twice as many as a Boeing 747, is giving nightmaresto airline security experts.
Father Rene Amalberti, a member of the certificationteam of the Airbus 380 super-jumbo, said "cabin crew willneed specialist training as problems increase along with passengernumbers."
Not least, cabin crew will have to dealwith many more medical emergencies.
Longer flights mean more health problems,experts say: air sickness, deep-vein thrombosis due to lack ofmovement, and of course dehydration and anxiety.
No one's suggesting that each aircraft shouldhave its own doctor, but with medical emergencies numbering 200a year in the United States -- with 60 deaths -- and 1,000 to1,500 across the world, they are become a sizeable problems forthe airlines.
The carriers would ideally make each passengerfill in a health questionnaire when buying their ticket. But thatdoesn't make commercial sense when an increasing proportion ofair travellers are elderly.
One option in an emergency is to divertthe aircraft. But an Airbus 380 will need 3,350 metres (3,660yards) of runway, and that restricts it to just a few carefullyselected airports. And once it does land, quite apart from passengeranger and frustration, airlines will have to deal with a nightmarelogistical problems, perhaps requiring the provisions of board,lodging and onward flights -- in the case of a disabled superjumbo -- for 800 people.