On 16 December 2024, the Direction Générale de l’Aviation Civile (DGAC) convened an unprecedented working group to tackle the rise in incivilities at airports caused by aggressive and unruly passengers.
Supported by the airports sub-directorate, this working group was set up in response to warnings from the Chambre Syndicale de l’Assistance en Escale, which noted an upsurge in verbal and physical assaults, particularly at check-in, security and boarding points.
Far from being anecdotal, this type of behaviour affects overall airport safety, as well as working conditions and the attractiveness of airport jobs. With complaints rarely lodged and aggressive passengers allowed to board for lack of a clear legal framework, ground handling professionals are denouncing the inadequacy of protective measures.
In the light of these findings, a number of courses of action are being considered: quantifying the phenomenon in order to understand it better, stepping up prevention through awareness-raising campaigns aimed at passengers, offering appropriate training to the professionals affected, improving alert procedures and encouraging a more dissuasive repressive framework, ranging from denied boarding to flight bans by airlines.
Three further meetings of the working group are planned for 2025, with a clear objective: to transform these proposals into concrete measures to ease tensions and ensure everyone’s safety.