Last month, on a flight from Los Angeles, a passenger walloped a flight attendant's thigh because there were no more chicken entrees for dinner. Another recent case involved a traveler who was asked to remove his radio headset while the aircraft taxied on the runway. He struck the male flight attendant so hard that he sent him into the next row of seats. The passenger was escorted off the plane by deputies in Boston. Chris Marquet, a New York-based senior managing director for corporate travel consultants Kroll Associates, believes cabin fever is the inevitable result of airline greed.
Space is tight.
When there are delays, when the flight's crowded, and you've got a lot of people in a small area, you've got the potential for some airline rage. Wisely says cabin fever is spreading because of poor flying conditions. Vulnerability, decreased power and control, can lead to unplanned, irrational and sometimes violent reactions. Signaling Society's Demise Whittier, Calif.-based road rage expert Dr. Arnold Nerenberg even suggests that cabin fever is the first sign of a breakdown in society. Airlines have always cared more about profits than people.