Long Lines, Short Fuses Make For Bad Airline Behavior
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DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - The latest in a string of incidents involving bad behavior among air travelers happened on a flight from Dallas to Burbank, California.
Flying commercially seems like a volatile cocktail as-of-late, of long lines, strict rules and short fuses. It's a far cry from days gone by... times that etiquette experts believe we need to return to.
"It's a little unnerving because it makes you feel we are in a society that is about to explode all the time," says Wanda Sykes-Moore, operator of The Royal Court School of Etiquette in The Colony.
With air travel melees like the one on Sunday between passengers on a flight from Love Field to Burbank and another in Florida a few days earlier, CBS11 went to Moore to find out why it's happening.
"We have kind of lowered our standards of civility," she says.
Moore says people used to treat trips to the airport and boarding planes as special occasions that brought out their best clothes and behavior.
"We are not only casual in our dress we are casual in our outlook toward other people or expectations how we carry ourselves," she says. "You're less likely to fight if you were dressed up."
Other recent videos from inside commercial flights show people unable to control their political views and even getting kicked off for it.
"They are waiting for something to allow them to vent," she says.
Moore says she would tell air travelers the same thing she teaches her students.
"Take a breath, breathe and decide is this a battle worth fighting or if it is fight it in the way that civil one that is not disruptive and one that keeps you being cool under fire."