The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) will make its Zero Tolerance policy against unruly passengers permanent.  

The FAA implemented the policy on Jan. 13, 2021, after seeing a disturbing increase in unruly passenger incidents. Under the policy, the FAA issues fines to passengers for unruly behavior instead of warning letters or counseling. 

Combined with the FAA’s public awareness campaign, the Zero Tolerance policy has helped reduce the incident rate by more than 60%. As of Feb. 16, 2022, the FAA referred 80 unruly passenger cases to the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) for criminal review. 

In addition, the FAA says it will work with its airline, labor, airport and security and law enforcement partners to continue driving down the number of incidents.  

“Behaving dangerously on a plane will cost you; that’s a promise,” said Acting FAA Administrator Billy Nolen. “Unsafe behavior simply does not fly and keeping our Zero Tolerance policy will help us continue making progress to prevent and punish this behavior.”  

The agency is also working with the TSA to revoke TSA PreCheck from unruly passengers that the FAA fines.