Most of the news stories I saw about United Airlines’ decision to resume selling liquor on its flights in economy class said, “The carrier made the decision despite an overwhelming amount of onboard incidents and physical altercations between passengers and flight crews this year – more than 5,000 reported to the Federal Aviation Administration, in fact.”
We asked United to confirm its decision to resume sales of liquor in economy. What the reports we saw did not include was what United said in its statement: “The incidence of unruly passengers is very low, compared to our number of customers overall and what other U.S. carriers are seeing.”
Let’s dissect this (my comments in italics):
“Overwhelming amount of onboard incidents?” Really? Note there are no numbers except 5,000 reported to the FAA. Was that 5,000 United customers or 5,000 customers among all carriers flying in the U.S.?
Considering the hundreds of thousands — probably tens of tmillions — of people who have flown United since flights resumed, 5,000 is hardly “overwhelming.” In fact, infinitesimal is probably the better word. If you assume 500,000 people have flown, the number of incidents reported to the FAA is just 0.01% — that’s one-one-hundredth of one percent. Hardly overwhelming. If 1 million people have flown, it’s just 0.005. If 10 million people have flown, it’s 0.0005%.
“Many of those 5,000 reported to the FAA were verbal and due to the face mask mandate, but some were physical and fueled by alcohol consumption.” Not answered: How many were “fueled by alcohol consumption”? And of those that were “fueled by alcohol,” how many were beer and how many were wine? And how many involved on-board service?
“Just two days ago, in fact, a woman was charged with assault in Dallas after physically attacking a Southwest Airlines operations manager at Love Field, although there was no indication whether the woman was inebriated.” If we don’t know if the woman was inebriated, why report it?
The news report I drew these quotes from appeared on Travel Pulse, an online travel news site that cited Fox News in the story. Similar stuff appeared in a CNN story.
It’s not that hard for a reporter to ask a p.r. person to confirm facts in a story that appeared in a press release or elsewhere; it’s basic journalism, and we do it all the time. Also, it’s not that hard to have a questioning mind when reading press releases or news reports.