Florida-Bound Passenger Duct Taped To Seat After Assaulting Flight Attendants

I’ve written about unruly airplane passengers a lot lately. It’s not a coincidence, since according to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) spokeswoman in a Yahoo Finance Live interview, “It’s the worst it’s ever been for sure.”

There have been 3,615 reports of unruly passengers and 610 investigations initiated so far in 2021 alone. A new survey of close to 5,000 flight attendants from the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA found that more than 85% had dealt with passengers like this in the first half of 2021, with 17% of respondents experiencing a physical incident.

I haven’t even flown that much this year but on three out of the four flights I’ve been on, I have witnessed unruly passengers. Sadly, most of the troubled flights seem to involve Florida airports, especially Miami. Miami is also where I witnessed two of my three altercations. Here’s a post I wrote about the sickest airport fight you will probably ever see.

Unfortunately, Miami doesn’t seem to slow down as they’re all over the news again today because of a drunk (and might I add ‘punk’) 22-year-old passenger from Ohio, Maxwell Berry. He was on a Frontier Airlines flight from Philadelphia to Miami and is accused of inappropriately touching two female flight attendants and assaulting a male flight attendant.

According to ABC News Chicago, “The police report said Berry had two drinks while on the flight and ordered another drink. The report said Berry brushed an empty cup against the backside of a flight attendant. Berry then spilled his new drink on his shirt, went to the bathroom, and came out shirtless, the report said. A flight attendant helped him get another shirt from his carry-on. After walking around for 15 minutes, the report said, Berry then groped the chests of female flight attendants.”

Frontier passenger allegedly touched 2 flight attendants breasts,  then screamed his parents are worth $2 million, before punching a flight attendant. Frontier suspended the crew for duct taping the passenger to his seat as they landed in Miami. 22 yr old Max Berry is in custody. pic.twitter.com/4xS9Rwvafx

— Sam Sweeney (@SweeneyABC) August 3, 2021

In a video posted to Twitter by a passenger, you can hear Berry swearing repeatedly and bragging that his parents are worth over $2 million and something about his grandfather, which couldn’t be deciphered.

You can then see him take a swing at a flight attendant before being duct taped to a seat.

Frontier Airlines issued the following statement: “During a flight from Philadelphia to Miami on July 31, a passenger made inappropriate physical contact with a flight attendant and subsequently physically assaulted another flight attendant. As a result, the passenger needed to be restrained until the flight landed in Miami and law enforcement arrived. The flight attendants will be, as required in such circumstances, relieved of flying pending completion of investigation of the events.”

It’s crazy that the flight attendants are put on leave instead of being hailed as heroes. How would you like to be in the sky with this drunk punk for a two+ hour flight? I’d much rather the pilots not inconvenience the other passengers by diverting to a nearby airport, which could take hours depending on if the crew were approaching their maximum of flight hours for their work day.