The friendly skies too often resembled “season’s beatings” shopping brawls during the pandemic, as the number of arguments and even fistfights surged on-board. Viral videos of the flight-and-fight mayhem frequently had a common denominator—the federal government’s mask requirement.
So it may come as little surprise that disruptions on commercial domestic flights have plummeted by 74 percent since the Biden administration’s mask mandate was overturned by a federal judge in April. The current rate is 1.7 unruly passengers per 10,000 flights, down from 6.4 per 10,000 in February.
