U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says unruly passengers on airplanes won't be tolerated.
"We support airlines taking steps to protect passengers and their crews," Buttigieg said on Yahoo Finance Live.
Buttigieg stopped short of saying he supports a "no-fly" list for those with outrageous on-board incidents. But he left options open on what could be done to address the issue.
"I think we need to look at anything that will help keep our skies safe. I will say that many of the airlines have already taken that step privately, and we should continue to look at what we could do at a policy level knowing there is complexity when you try to do that that cuts across airlines and is developed by the government," Buttigieg added.
The comments come as Delta CEO Ed Bastian reportedly sent a letter to the U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland reiterating his desire to prosecute unruly passengers and put them on a "no-fly" list.
"In addition to the welcome increase in enforcement and prosecutions, we are requesting you support our efforts with respect to the much-needed step of putting any person convicted of an on-board disruption on a national, comprehensive, unruly passenger 'no-fly' list that would bar that person from traveling on any commercial air carrier," Bastian told Garland, according to a copy of the letter obtained by CNN.
The issue is likely coming to a head in light of startling new data on unruly passenger airline incidents in 2021, in part caused by the mask mandate on airplanes.
Last year saw 5,981 unruly passenger reports, according to new findings from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). About 72% of those incidents were related to masks mandates.
"We still have far too many cases, far too many examples of flight crews being mistreated or even other passengers being harmed by unruly passengers. It has got to stop. We are going to continue doing everything that we can through enforcement and through just getting the message out there that we stand with the flight crews and those who are up there," Buttigieg said.
Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.
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