This is definitely past the point of “turning into a trend” and it’s reached full-blown epidemic levels now. The numbers that have been released by the FAA and the various airlines simply don’t have any other explanation. The number of arguments, shouting matches, and, yes, physical fights breaking out on airline flights these days has gone through the roof. And it’s not because of the tiny, uncomfortable seats or the crappy food (if you even get any food), though I’m sure those factors aren’t helping matters either. People are angry about the face mask mandates and unfortunately, there are a lot of them who are taking it out on the flight attendants. In one of the latest incidents, a member of the cabin crew on a Southwest Airlines flight had a couple of teeth knocked out in a dispute over the face mask rules.

A Southwest Airlines flight attendant lost two teeth during an assault on a flight over the weekend, a union leader wrote in a letter to the airline’s CEO asking for support with increasingly unruly passengers.

“From April 8 to May 15, there were 477 passenger misconduct incidents on Southwest Airlines Aircraft,” Lyn Montgomery, the president of the Transport Workers Union of America Local 556, wrote in a letter Monday to Southwest Airlines CEO Gary Kelly.

“The unprecedented number of incidents has reached an intolerable level, with passenger non-compliance events also becoming more aggressive in nature,” Montgomery wrote adding that a flight attendant over the weekend was “seriously assaulted, resulting in injuries to the face and loss of two teeth.”

In a typical year prior to the pandemic, the FAA reports that they generally received between 100 and 150 “passenger misconduct” incident reports. In the first four months of 2021, they have received 2,500, with more than 1,900 being specific to the mask mandate. That’s not an “uptick.” That’s an increase of more than 1,000%.

I’m not in any way endorsing violence against flight attendants as a solution to a passenger’s issues. The people who do this need to be held accountable. Those flight crews didn’t make those rules, but are simply the unfortunate souls who were put in charge of enforcing them on the front lines.

The reason those mandates are still in place is twofold. First, the federal order that Joe Biden issued regarding interstate travel is still in effect for air travel. And second, the airlines are still petrified at the thought of anyone who comes down with COVID after flying on one of their planes suing them until they are out of business.

Both of the problems I mentioned above are addressable if the government has the will to do so. First, Congress should take up and pass one of the bills that have already been submitted that would provide immunity against COVID lawsuits for businesses that have been playing by the rules. They would feel far more comfortable allowing passengers to ditch their masks if that happened.

Next, we should keep in mind that there’s nothing particularly “special” about the air in the passenger compartment of an airplane, aside from probably recirculating through the filtration system a bit faster than most other places. If the CDC thinks it’s safe enough for vaccinated people to sit in a restaurant together and eat dinner without a mask, it’s safe enough to sit in an airplane. As soon as the immunity bill was signed, the President would need to rescind the mask mandate for interstate travel and ensure that the CDC reviews all of its guidelines as well.

Of course, that’s something that would happen in a sane, sensible society. What happens in 21st-century America is anybody’s guess.