Behave or lose your privileges and you get to pay 3x next time you try to get on a flight.

Also I don’t know this 13-yo. Some can be small some can be large.

Airlines can ban passengers on their own, here's a recent famous case where a state legislator got banned:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/26/politics/alaska-airlines-susp...

Right? If someone attempts to cause structural damage at 30k feet, I'm going to stop that person with any means necessary.

Because that's who was trying to kick out a window.

That incident was a case of a kid throwing a tantrum. A choke hold is not the proper response to that. IMO, duck taping the little shit to the seat is a very appropriate response if the child is truly uncontrollable.

What about this being a 13 year old is mitigating in your mind vs a middle-aged person?

If the latter, sorry I misunderstood what you were addressing.

But otherwise this isn’t a punitive thing where we’re measuring how wrong they are and their mental ability / level of guilt before acting. It’s a temporary and immediate solution when the parent can’t handle it on their own and the staff talking to them isn’t mitigating the risk.

The idea is to choose the safest and least violent viable option until law enforcement can handle it (choking someone… eh not so much).

Absent ‘alternative means’ provided by the airline, duct tape is one of the quickest, most widely accessible, and probably most practical if non-violent options all fail. Not everyone carries rope or other restraints. These are civilian airline workers too.

Restraining someone can have a legitimate mental impact and bad PR but so does the rest of the passengers who are all naturally scared of plane crashes.

The door will not open. The window itself is strong enough to withstand any kick that someone could put on it, but that is largely irrelevant as there is the a scratch pane, and that additional window with the tiny hole in the bottom in front of it for additional protection.

If you're holding a choke hold beyond the point someone has passed out, i.e. "risking killing them", then YOU are the danger to others in that situation, not mentally ill dude trying in futility to exit the aircraft at 36000ft.

Im also not sure what to make of your comments regarding windows and doors on airplanes. It seems the doors would be impossible to open at high enough altitude, but I’m not so sure about windows:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2243764/Man-arreste...

I wonder if in this example it was just the interior layer of plastic/glass?

It's possible, though unlikely, the guy in the article made it through the middle plexiglass layer in addition to the inner layer which is only there to stop you from scratching the plexiglass; at 4mm thick it's certainly within the realm of human strength. However at 12mm the outer layer is comfortably beyond what a human could crack without weapons/tools.

I'm mostly curious about whether there's a real risk or not of a passenger breaking a window without tools.

This seems like one of those situations where we don't want to just assume that what we think the window can handle is the same as what it can actually handle.

I expect airline windows to be able to withstand the kick of a child. Even if they were an older child.

I don’t think you can reasonably expect people to sit there and do nothing in a situation where a 13 year old boy is overpowering his mother and kicking airplane windows.

Like I’m definitely not sitting there going “oh well I guess since we couldn’t hold them down well just have to hope the window doesn’t break”.

It was still a child. The airplane windows should hold. Restraints are fine, if you really need them. Duct tape, though?

It was still a child. Even at 13.

I think that's what they're worried about, hence the notice.

> Instead, he is asking crews to use the items aboard flights designed to keep flyers at their seats – and prevent them from becoming a hazard to the flight or other passengers.

I'd also note the Frontier incident that made the news was passengers duct taping the miscreant, not the crew. If I were a flight attendant in this situation, I might pull the "oh, whoops, dropped a roll of duct tape... would one of you grab that for me?" tactic.

So you just say "hey don't do that".

I am duct taping this person. Then when someone says I should not do this, I am duct taping that person.

This was a child. A child tried to kick out a window. And to be absolutely frank: I fully expect airplane windows to be able to withstand a kick from a child.

I understand it probably wasn't on a whim, but surely, there are better options in this case.

A 13-year-old boy. If he was 3, that'd be an acceptable excuse. At 13.. not so much. Even if he had no clue what might happen, he surely knew that vandalism is bad.

> I fully expect airplane windows to be able to withstand a kick from a child.

I know a guy who was 6'9 and 240lbs of lean muscle at 13. It's an extreme example, but the point still stands. If I were on that plane, I sure as hell won't suggest to wait and see how many kicks it takes him.

> but surely, there are better options in this case

They obviously didn't have, and it's the kind of situation where you have to restrain that person immediately. No time to reflect on your options. Still, what's your solution? Here's mine: Any person past the age of 7 who throws a tantrum gets 500 hours of community service.

Would you bet your life on it? Inconveniencing an out of control teenager for a few hours to ensure the safety of all passengers seems like a pretty sane response.