>> and i'd like to thank bank of america, and axios and making this possible, c-span thank you for making this possible. and ivanka trump, thank you for making it. >> thank you, this is great. [applaus [applause]. ♪ >> and our live coverage will continue now with senator bob casey, he's speaking about an airline passenger sexual harassment bill he's sponsoring in congress. this is live coverage, we join it in progress. >> god bless you and thank you. [applaus [applause]. >> guest: icht senator, agathan,

without motivation, it's hard to wage the battle. thank you for being a true pirate partisan. i'll turn the agenda over to mark who will take us into our first panel. good morning, everyone, i'm mark harris the aso communications coordinator and very proud to call senator casey a fellow pennsylvanian and an eagles fan. we heard senator casey describe the legislation he's sponsoring, sexual assault on board our airplanes. we will have the panel come up. we're encouraged by his leadership in that regard. and today's first panel will build upon passenger behavior. before it begins, let's briefly go over the lineup. following this panel, we'll have a break and then another panel on data mining, followed by presidential citation

presentations and keynote lunch with the f.a.a.'s acting administrator. and in the afternoon, a panel on flight access and followed by a break and another panel on managing change in the national aerospace system and then end with our closing keynote speaker the head of the national air traffic contollers association. i know we're a little bit late on time and we'll make that up at lunch and we'll go 20 minutes and post you that as we go. tonight our annual awards banquet and reception, with a reception in the foyer and the banquet after. and please remember to silence your phone or other electronics devices that have. senator casey's legislation to

stop sexual assault and first off, mark-- i'm sorry, matt clark, mec security chair he's going to introduce the panel and get us started. >> thank you. good morning, everyone, welcome to the first panel discussion on day two of the 64th annual alba air safety forum. my name is matt clark and i'm a pilot with delta airline and the delta mec chairman-- excuse me the security chairman, i'll be moderating this panel. the name of this, disruptive passenger keeping problems off the airplane. when it comes to most airline industry metrics like on-line air performance, lost bags and safety areas, most of us can agree that the data is consistently and successfully reported, tracked and analyzed by all industry stakeholders. unfortunately, data on unreally passenger events does not ennoi the same level, comprehensive level of attention that perhaps it should.

in fact, there's a startling disconnect between the number of disruptive passenger incidents reported and the number of events that actually occurment only through the phenomena of smart phone video cameras and social media has the frequency and types of incidents come to light in the public's eye. let us contrast the two most prominent resources for data on industriment it would be from the industry group and f.a.a. for example, in 2016, there were exactly 100 unruly passenger events reported to the f.a.a. that same year, industry group put the number at 9, 837. 100 incidents compared with almost 10,000. that's a remarkably huge difference. it's important to note of almost 10,000 incidents, intoxication from alcohol and/or drugs was over 33% of incidents. some of the data is presented

on the screen to my right and left. the discrepancy speaks volume. the standardization of data collection. in this era of analytics not to have reliable information what's taking place only adds to the complexity of solving this problem. it's important to note, unlike safety events like engine failures, aircraft damage, et cetera, there's no requirement for unruly passenger events to be reported by the industry, thus, making it difficult to know the actual number of events, thus the tracking of the events is cumbersome and often incomplete. we see an overall increase in the number of incidents for passengers and airlines and crews. while the statistics remember the best picture of unruly passenger events, they do not

include all airlines around the world and likely underestimate the true extent of the problem. to further illustrate the significance of this issue, we have another slide that lists some headlines from a few of the events occurring in the last six months. while unruly passengers might account for a small percentage of the travelling public they can have a disproportionate impact on everyone else. delays, and diversion could come as a result of unruly passengers. that translates into lost productivity, missed meetings or vacations and potentially significant costs, real financial costs for all parties. these costs often run in the hundreds of thousands of dollars for a single diverted flight. position, they estimate the cost of a single diversion at about $200,000. responding to an unruly passenger event can be a monumental task when you consider the fact that the incident is taking place about seven miles above the surface of the earth in a pressurized

metal tube travelling 500 miles per hour. unlike when this sort of incident occurs in any other more common public setting, simply walking away, calling 911, or pulling over to the side of the road is not an option. in fact, often times, huge volumes of resources may be required to respond to an unruly passenger once the flight has departed. rerouting by air traffic contollers, loss of space by aircraft. additional airline support staff. law enforcement personnel, additional fuel, hotels and passenger acomplications, medical bills and lawsuits and a variety of resources may be needed in response to just one unruly passenger. true, the potential losses in time, productivity and financial cost are substantial, however, there's far more at stake here. sexual assaults targeting

flight attendants and passengers, and become physically violent. when this happened, crew and passengers alike may feel like they're literally fighting for their lives aboard a given flight. our industry cannot afford to become tone deaf to these types of incidents when the public safety is at stake. while it's not a concept we want to embrace, the fact that a single passenger as the ability to jeopardize an entire flight must be acknowledged. some are making changes to curb the proliferation of these events. but we believe a comprehensive plan involving all relevant parties, all of this leads us to where we are today. with so much left to be done to truly prevent these types of incidents, we've brought together a panel of industry experts to get their perspective on what they view as the underlying problem and contributing factors in the u.s., as well as what we can do as an industry to try and curb the problem. with much gratitude, i welcome their insight, their experience

and participation in today's discussion. we've arranged the order in the same way we approach aviation as a whole. from the curb at the front of the terminal, all the way through the airport and into the aircraft cabin. starting with the panelist sitting closest to me and moving to your right, allow me to introduce to you. christopher bidwell. the next panelist, chief michael everson, the chief of police for the metropolitan airports commission at minneapolis/st. paul international airport and the president of airport law enforcement agency network. our third panelist providing the airline's point of view is alexander. alexei is compliance for united airlin airlines. and our next panelist

representing the flight attendants, sarah is the international association of flight attendants. and steven, f.a.a. air carrier operations. panel irses, thank you for being here today. i'd like to remind our audience, this is informal panel discussion and we highly encourage your participation. at this point i'll turn the microphone over to our panelist, i'd ask you to briefly give your thoughts on any issues. chris, welcome, the floor is open. >> thank you very much. like to thank, randy, matt, jerry, and the apple team for the opportunity to participate. my time is chris bidwell, vice-president of security for airport council international north america, representing airports in the u.s. and canada. in preparation for this panel, i did a little research and one of the interesting things that i found that i think is pertinent is that in 2006, the

national highway traffic safety administration funded research on state statutes and regulations pertaining to alcohol sales and/or service to intoxicated people. although primarily focused on reducing injuries and fatalities resulting from impaired driving, the research is, as i said, pertinent. the research was intended to examine the variation in state laws on sales to intoxicated persons. how statutory language was interpreted in court cases and key issues associated with the enforcement and adjudication practices. the report was issued in 2009 and it revealed a number of interesting findings. almost every state except for florida and nevada, what happens in vegas, stays in vegas, i guess, prohibits sales of alcohol to intoxicated

persons. however, states use different terminology to denote that providing alcohol to intoxicated persons is prohibited, and for the visible and observable signs of intoxication. states has two penalties at their disposal. one is criminal and the other is administrative in nature, or civil, but they do not specify what the actual penalties are. the sales to intoxicated people is relatively rare, due to cultural norms, regarding acceptability of sales to intoxicated people and the lack of of political will to enforce it. also, limited resources to support enforcement, and statutory provisions related to the element of playoff that

makes evidence collection, overly burdensome. two states, washington and utah, collect information about place of last drink, and target investigations of establishments identified as problem locations. and that might be something that we could leverage as a means to address these challenges. so, it's interesting to note, also, that with the expansion of mobile check-in, the number of touch points, if you will, where a traveler interacts with an airline or tsa representative, has been significantly reduced. and in most cases, they don't come into contact with airport representatives or airport law enforcement, unless the airline calls upon them to respond. so, the regulatory relationship is really between the state and

the establishment that sells alcohol. therefore, it's incumbent upon the establishment, which could include a bar, restaurant or airline club at an airport to enforce the prohibition on sales to intoxicated individuals. so, let's talk about law enforcement for just a minute and i know mike's going to go into this as well, but in accordance with tsa regulations, airport operators are responsible and required to provide enforcement-- law enforcement personnel in the number and manner adequate to support their airport security program. airport law enforcement have numerous responsibilities to include responding to calls from airport operators or foreign air carriers. deterrence and prevention of criminal activity, investigating crimes, traffic enforcement, participating in vulnerability assessments,

intelligence information gathering and sharing and also, supporting tsa passenger screening operations. i want to touch on that for just a minute. this is something or an area, rather, that impacted the ability of law enforcement. so after 9/11, congress enacted the aviation and transportation security act. this legislation not only created tsa, but it also corrected the deployment of law enforcement personnel authorized to carry firearms at each airport security screening location to ensure safety and national security. initially, tsa had planned to deploy federal law enforcement to each check point, however, they never received funding to do so. so, they've only got a limited cadre of federal law enforcement automotives. therefore, tsa established the law enforcement reimbursement program to provide partial

reimbursement to airport operators to providing law enforcement to screening operations. recently, however, the number of requirements placed on law enforcement have increased significantly, but the amount airports are reime about you yours-- reimbursed have decreased and have looked to eliminate this program. it's unconceivable that congress would cut funding to the law enforcement reimbursement program and it's something that we oppose the elimination of and think is should be supported because it's critical in aviation security. so, just a few consideration. a community-based approach is necessary to minimize the number of disruptive

passengers. identifying problem states, practices and establishment would provide a good method for deterring these sorts of acts. as matt said at the outset, you can't underscore the importance of reporting as much information as is available. thanks very much. >> chief everson, please. >> yeah, thanks for the introduction. matt. my name is mike everson at st. paul-minneapolis airport and the press of the law enforcement agencies network. alen is an airport that law enforcement agencies belong to, it's not an individual membership and we have about 120 member airports and each of those member airports has numerous of their officers and command staff that are participating in that as well. i want to thank everybody for the opportunity to be here. i think it's truly an honor to

present with this panel today and i want to thank all of you for keeping us safe in the skies and we appreciate what you do as far as the law enforcement perspective. we truly do. i want to take a minute to talk a little about the history and my comments today are about the law enforcement response to these disruptive passengers. we're not there in the sky when it happens. sometimes the plane never gets off the ground, but we're there when the door opens when you guys call for help. so i want to talk about the history part. how we got here. obviously, this isn't a new phenomenon, but as matt indicated in his slide and i'll certainly-- i didn't know those stats and i think those stats are staggering as far as the is amount, but look i said, it's not a new phenomenon. we did enjoy a short period, as you probably all remember, both on the ground and in the air, for a time period after 9/11 where with these types of instances, diminished

significantly. and i think that's because we had everybody's attention, and i think people were a little bit more apprehensive about doing things that got those situations out of hand. we've come full circle and everybody has forgotten both on the ground and in the air, and we are now in a situation, as far as i'm concerned, where it's far worse than it ever has been before and i think that matt's stats show a lot to give credit to that. so, let's talk a little about the types. so we talked about alcohol. so, nearly, alcohol, i think it was like 30-some percent of the instances it's involved in. there's also illicit drugs, there's prescription drugs, there is the combination of all three together, which is the worst case scenario and then there's the scenario where none of those are present and you have somebody who is in crisis and those are very difficult in challenging situations and no less difficult to try to solve,

especially in the air without the proper resources to deal with that. because it is a medical situation and then sometimes you have that crisis individual who has combined alcohol with the medication that they were supposed to be on and that is truly a very, very dangerous situation, as well. so none of that has changed. so, that's that history that i was talking about. none of that has changed except for the fact that it's getting worse. so, what law enforcement will do, when we're called and a lot of times that first call comes to us by way of the tower, from the flight deck communicating with the tower so we know what we have. sometimes it's the version, and sometimes it's the planes that come into our airports initially, and we're going to find out what happened and we're going to want to talk to the flight crew and the flight deck to find out exactly what happened and gauge how we deal with the situation accordingly. so, sometimes those situations

are dangerous and they're dynamic and we don't have a choice and we have to go in and deal with the situation then and now. so, we don't like to do that, but we have to. so, what has changed? what was changed, when we talked a little about the prevalence of the phones and social media and live streaming different things, airports, law enforcement agencies all have an interest of of dealing with that person outside of the public eye. first of all, those situations are-- they're not pretty. removing somebody forcefully from an aircraft for good reason is not a pretty sight. and i think you've all experienced that and we've all seen it on the internet and it's not pretty. so we don't want to do that in the-- you know, we doesn't want to do that in the worldwide eye. prior to the prevalence of that, we'd go on the airport and depending on what the situation was, we'd try to encourage the person to come

off the aircraft peacefully. if that did not work, then we would ask the-- somebody responsible from the airline, whether it's management on the ground or somebody from the flight deck to tell that person they're no longer welcome and they have to leave. if they refuse to do that, we would remove people from the direct area around that passenger for their own safety and we would take them off. and there was more times than not, they needed to get off. they deserved to get off and i'll be honest, it was a little bit fun when you would be pulling somebody off the aircraft and you get that round of applause. that was fun. i miss those days. [laughter] >> i'm just being honest. so, now days we have taken a different approach. many airport law enforcement agencies have gone back and we've adapted our policies and how we deal with these disruptive passengers to account for that. minimize the exposure to the airline, minimize exposure to the department and to the airport and to minimize the

injury that we have to other passengers. and the way we do that is, those first two sfeps that i talked about, trying to get them to come off, asking somebody from the airline to tell them they're no longer welcome, then we ask everybody-- we tell the flight deck or somebody from the airline, in order for us it remove this passenger you're going to have to deplane that aircraft. as matt was saying, it was an expensive proposition, but many of us including in my city, we will not forcefully remove somebody who is being passively resistent and without the aircraft being deplaned. we just won't do it anymore. many other agencies are now doing that as well. and it's not just because we don't want everybody to see it on the internet, it is dangerous. it's not pretty. but it's the way it needs to be done. so, that does create a bit of a controversy sometimes, especially-- i mean, we talked about the dollars associated with those

diversions and deplaning and how long that takes and so you know what you're getting in for. so i guess i would urge the representatives here today from the various airlines, if you get that request from law enforcement, please heed that because we need your assistance in doing that. if, in fact, they will not deplane the plane and we won't, you know, in most cases we won't go in there and we won't go in and do it. we're going to encourage you to try to coax the person to come off, but we're not going to do that unless the situation changed. if the situation is assaultive or an emergency situation where we have to go in for the safety of others, they will. but most cases they don't. since me started doing that, once the plane starts deplaning, the person comes off. and there's no reason for them to stay anymore, because the plane isn't going anywhere. and usually doing that causes the person to be more compliant in the first place, but not

always. so, we talked about what can be done. and the bad news is that you have people that are coming in and they're drinking and i'm specifically talking about the alcohol related. they're drinking in the establishments, which all of the airports very much want because they want that revenue. then they're going onto your aircraft and they're continuing to probably drink and then maybe having a layover and then they're going to go back to the airport and start drinking again, only to get on another plane or two, and the progression of that drinking just continues. so, that is challenging. now, when they're sitting in your aircraft, it's much more difficult to try to determine that level of intoxication when they're simply just sitting there and you may have a brief-- you know, the flight attendants might have a brief conversation about what i want to drink, but it's really, really difficult when somebody is sitting in a chair not verballizing too much.

it's challenging for the flight attendants to try to determine somebody's level of intoxication so they can gauge whether or not they can provide responsible service. that's challenging and i'm not sure we'll talk about that today. but there are things that can be done. airports like mine, we have proactively for years been teaching responsible service to the food and beverage venues in our airports. and some of the-- some of the better food and beverage vendors mandate that for their wait staff. and so, that's very helpful. and not only is it responsible service, but also recognizing and identifying underage, potential service as well. another thing that local law enforcement around the country, whether it's at an airport or not, that we have done, we have been engaging in what we call cip training. so it's crisis intervention training and that's the tactics that we use to try to deal with

somebody and first of all, identify whether or not they're in a crisis situation or not and how to properly deal with them and that also goes in hand with deescalation. so there's deescalation training that shows different types of techniques and it all kind of plays into one big package of trying to provide better law enforcement services to get people the help that they need and in some cases, it's hospitalization, in some cases it may be detention. so, one of the things as far as best practices that i like to talk about here, is that same level of training scooperatively, that the airlines will do and i know that there are-- there's lots of training that happens. deescalation training is very important. crisis intervention training is very important as well as responsible service of alcohol. so, and that's not just in the aircraft, it's also at the

gates. we see people in gates all the time and i was just having a conversation with somebody a couple of days ago how they were at dca. they were sitting there, at a restaurant, and they had-- they were in a delay and they sat and watched somebody drink after drink after drink after drink and it never occurred to the food and beverage server thought, hey, maybe this person has enough at eight. that person continued onto the aircraft. and that person went to the a gate agent and said, that person probably has had too much. he said we'll keep an eye on it. i don't know if anything happened or not, but that's a bad situation. that situation is setting itself up for to end badly. so i think that awareness and that cooperation with the airports, the law enforcement agencies, the airlines, not only in the air, but on the

ground, to help identify these things so we don't put ourselves in the situation where we have to deal with that. now, there are sometimes you just can't help. you just can't fix all the different problems and somebody's going to get themselves into that situation and even if every step along the way steps were taken to try and mitigate that, it happens anyway and in those cases, your training and your ability to deal with those individuals in the air until you can get them on the ground and we can intervene, sometimes that's what we have to do. so, that's the end of my comments today, and i'll be willing to engage in other conversations if people have questions. >> thank you, chief. and alexei, please. >> firstly, matt, i'd like to thank you for not citing the airlines on the recent incidents. [laughter] >> it's a pleasure to be here, i'm a ng maker in corporate

security for united airlines. for the past years i've had had direct oversight over our formalized programs created to address disruptive passengers and unruly behavior. actually, 11 years ago in 2007 united corporate security, our legal division, asa, alpha, joined foth and discussed how can we support our employees when they are the victims of assault on board an aircraft or in the airport? ultimately, it was decided that one person should not be solely responsible for determining what, if any, action is taken against the customer. and that a complete incident investigation should be completed for each and every allegation of assault. so with what we call the passenger review committee, perk, another acronym, we

comprise director level or above, the legal, the division, the pilot group, flight attendant or customer service group, we decided we needed to have an in-person meeting where we gathered to hear the details of the situation and unanimously agree on a decision tore that customer. additionally formalized practice provides legal and emotional support to our employees. so, soon after establishing that practice, we realized we needed a parallel program for those instances of passengers assaulting other passengers, whether it's a fight over an arm rest or an intoxicated wrestling match on board, we've seen it all and every incident is investigated fully. so, for perspective from 2007 to 2012, the first five years of our program, we averaged about 40 to 50 cases per year. in 2017, we had 335 total cases

and we're projected to at least double that number this year. so, there's no sign that these numbers will stop growing anytime soon as matt alluded to. again, we analyzed each case to determine the appropriate response. based upon among many things, the severity of the assault, the passengers post incident conduct, and position, and the passenger's prior history with united or any other factors relevant to the degree to which they present a safety risk. our policy is to delay travel or refuse to carry any passenger whose conduct or condition, again, threatens the safety or security of our flight. in 2015, the committee created yet another subgroup to address that customer group that doesn't necessarily rise to the level of physical assault, but cause an operational impact. whether it's a diversion,

return to gate. a damage to the aircraft in some way. we actually investigate each of those incidents as well and then we seek restitution costs and take appropriate measures with those customers as well. so, what started as an ad hoc meeting every time one of these unfortunately events happened has now become a weekly meeti meeting. it's fully visible by senior leadership attended by our leadership and we track all passenger travel for those that are inducted into the program. so that's a daily monitoring of passenger travel. the growth in passenger incidents has required program specific training for our front line employees and how to report these incidents has become critical because of the communication is at the essence of our incident investigation.

obviously, the use of small cameras and mobile devices for photographer is permitted on board, and our airplanes are considered public space which makes it difficult to monitor. if a customer refuses to stop taking pictures or video and our crew strongly believes there's malicious intent or suspicious irrational behavior occurring, our policy is for crew to follow the normal escalation procedures, which focus on communication and that eventually leads to a passenger incident review, and a full committee rendering. so, that's a high level overview of our passenger program. in discussions with our flying partners, those domestically and internationally, we realize we have quite a robust system that's been around for a fair amount of time, over ten years, and we're pretty proud of that and, again, i'm happy to be here and answering questions you might have about that.

>> so, matt, thank you for bringing the panel together. when the president called to ask me if i would be willing to take part in this panel, i said, oh, my favorite topic. >> he said one that you know well, anyway. this is true. i'm sara nelson, representing the flight attendants at 20 different airlines, and some of them are here with us today, i'm proud to say. but this is a that you shall we face every single day on the job and those incidents that are reported by iota, those are not even the true toll of how many times we face these issues on a daily basis. because flight attendants have become experts and spend the majority of their time practicing deescalation skills so that the conflicts between the passenger do not rise to

the level of interfering with the entire flight. i want to be as brief as possible to get to your discussion. safety and security doesn't just happen. it happens because people in this room demands it happens. it happens because you're engaged. it happens because we have unions that promote these kinds of discussions with ourselves, with our airlines, with the federal agencies and i cannot thank you enough for your focus on that and your efforts to bring real attention to this issue. so, first and foremost, senator casey talked about the fighting and the division in the country, and creating an atmosphere at the airport and on our planes where there is respect and civility is critical. that's why this year it's so important that we're speaking out and making it very clear that sexual harassment and sexual assault has no place on our planes. this is critical as part of our efforts to create an atmosphere

on the plane where we are going to understand that everyone is going to have respect for each other. when he was talking about passenger on passenger sexual assault and flight attendants responding to that, remember, these are the flight attendants who were originally held up as sex objects to sell tickets and that was never denounced by the industry. i want to commend united airlines, alaska airlines and spirit airlines stepping up immediately, their ceo's putting out very clear statements that this is a new day, and we're not going to tolerate that at our airlines. i want to thank all of you for participating in that message to the travelling public, and to flight crews so that we can have the authority and respect to be able to deescalate in the cabin. to be able to manage the issues that we're facing. so, that first and foremost, creating that atmosphere is so critically important. i also want to note that there is an issue here systematically

in the country. this issue of inequality. these issues are real. people get on our planes, they walk through first class. they walk through some sort of comfort level of economy, and then they walk to their seat that is getting smaller and closer together and people are feeling the squeeze. they're feeling the squeeze in their home townes and paychecks. and there are more people on the planes because the tickets are 40% lower than deregulation if you account for inflation. and more people are travelling than ever before, but they don't have the money to survive in their hometowns. they're working two and three jobs and feeling this inequity. this is exacerbated by the 1982 allowing shareholder buybacks, to inflate the price of the stock, and not reinvest into the airline. not determine whether or not the can p is succeeding based

on operational performance, based on the employees and what we're turning out and how the executives are returning the airlines and this is problematic. you see it in the complaints about a pilot shortage that we know is really a pay shortage, right? so, these are issues that are real because what has happened since then, we talked about how there was a level of respect and civility and the idea that we're in this together after 9/11, there was also still the staffing levels at the gate and on the planes in place prior to 9/11. typically on any domestic flight, flight attendant staffing was 25 to 50% greater than it is today at f.a.a. minimum. same with at the gate. the customer service agencies now are down to minimum staffing levels. when that happens and you have one agency at the gate and minimal staffing levels, sometimes we're boarding the plane prior to the pilots even making it to the plane, right?

so we don't have that communication vehicle through. we cannot talk with each other about what's going on. it's difficult for an agency to say, hey, we've got a tip that anybody somebody is intoxicated, we need to watch them. i would hope that that person is kept completely off the plane in the first place, best way to avoid a problem in-flight is to keep them off the plane, but we don't have the ability to communicate on issues with each other, and that create huge problems with carry-on bags, which are a huge reason that people are fighting with each other on board the flight, trying to find their area of space and try to get that carry-on bag. and maybe a family isn't seated together and we try to work on issues like that. so, we have huge problems with minimum staffing today, that exacerbates the issues on board

with our aircraft fuller than ever. seats closer together than ever, and more people sitting in those seats. with this idea that we are a divided country, and that is real. the political discussion in this country is real on our planes and we're often at the tip of the spear as flight attendants in dealing with that because when you bring humanity together, anytime you bring humanity that close together there's bound to be conflict from time to time. but if you also come with this idea that we are divided, that we don't respect each other, that we're not in this together, that just raises the temperature and the divide and feeling of inequities and creates a higher likelihood of that conflict. layer on top of that a failure to communicate throughout the airport, at the gate, and then on the plane, about someone's alcohol intake or other behavior that we may have been witnessing and we're at a

complete disadvantage now on the plane. and we're not doing what we need to do to keep those issues off the plane and on the other side of the door before we take off and have big problems in the air. in terms of topography. alexy, i'm glad you touched on this. and people have their phones and it's unrealistic not to say this they'll bring them out and take pictures of their families and things. united had a difficulty with these issues and the crew, that these phones are going to be in people's hands. they're not laws on books to tell you have to put them away. we like to have good catalogs of services we give and all the things we do. if there's an interference with crew member duties or suspicion

of safety or security issues, then we need to work together and we need backing from the flight deck to help people understand, they've got to put that phone away. take people back to why these policies in some cases were in place in the first place. the other passengers on the plane do not give someone else the permission to take their image and use that. we've had flight attendants who have been stalked at home, and so, we have to recognize that not everyone who is taking that camera out to document their fun trip is doing it because it's just fun. we have to really be watching these issues and it puts crew members in an incredibly difficult position to be able to identify who is doing this with some ill-intent, and who is doing this because they're enjoying this time. this is a complicated issue that i think that we need to take on with greater sense of urgency around what is acceptable and what is not, and

it is-- it is a huge safety and security issue in terms of surveillance of crew, and leading to further security threats in terms of escalating situations on the plane when there's already a conflict going on, and so, i think this is an area where we could actually use some help from the regulators to have very clear and sensible instruction about what is appropriate and what is not. and we appreciate your backing when we are bringing those issues to your attention in the flight deck. so i could go on and on. i want to leave some time for some discussion here. but this is the most disruptive issue that we deal with in aviation today, the focus on it is important and flight attendants do not have the staffing to be able to properly address these issues and so, we want to push forward on the staffing issues, on clear

issues around carryon badge on alcohol, on photography in the cabin. >> thank you. sir? >> i manage the part carriers operations branch within the division of office of safety standards. boy, if there was ever a problem that needed a team approach this seems to be it. you know, it's part of security, but it's separate as well because it deals with social behavior and it's very difficult to come up with norms for social behavior because we're all different. ...

we've got sms processes at the air carriers which perhaps your program was generated from an sms program. but it seems a natural flow from it. with the sms process, every carriers need to get, resolve their own issues. it's not a simple issue. it invites a great deal of finger-pointing and went to stay out of finger-pointing. one thing will agree on is we don't want people on the airplane. one thing that also agree on is once they get on the airplane and are disruptive we want the ability to take action and the ability to take action depends upon a great deal upon the crews willingness to commit, commit the energy to give us the information we need to take action. i'm going to echo what mark brought up. thus far this you replacing 44 enforcement team is only seen 44

cases where enforcement was a potential. last job i think it was 89 and think that referenced 305 a few years ago. if there are, in fact, 10,000 occurrences out there, there's a lot of holes in the dike. our lawyers assure me they are more than willing to aggressively pursue any action or any opportunity they get. so i don't know that i've got anything further. we can and opened it up for questions. but we are here. as far as, we are also committed to working, to continue working to find resolutions. if there's gaps when did identify the gaps and become involved, but we have i believe with plenty of regulatory authority and that pursuing regulatory authority or further regulation would take a great deal of time if it gets on the

docket at all and time that might be better spent searching for other solutions. >> welcome first of all i'd like to thank all of our panelists. that was some tremendous insight which is extremely valuable, and with some time remaining would like to open up to some questions, if anyone from the floor has some. happy to answer them at this time. microphone right behind you there. >> is for alexy. one of the questions, or enters i heard you say was you include the employee groups and their reviews. as i go to the regional partners, to? are the pilots for the regional partners being represented and air flight attendants in each review processes. >> was not currently on the committee that meets the week but we do meet monthly with our output and afa representatives and share that information freely of what happens.

there are privacy issues with sharing some of information but we're pretty free-flowing with the cases and so full support can be provided to the employees. we have recently revisited potentially having some members on the committee because with the expansion, i think the more valuable heads in the room will be important for making those decisions. lately it's been a lot of banning of people. i think that the unanimous decision has been quite easy lately. so the more people we can get in the room to make that decision happen more quickly would be great, in my opinion. >> thank you. >> we've identified a lot of issues, airport, airline crew member identifies the individual. chief everson, your people get to do with it.

the tsa and faa can mandate, to we get our prosecutors to actually take the cases, but the time, effort energy into prosecuting these people, and someone to track these people. alexy, you just get on we banded in alaska -- united, shipping to alaska. there's got to be a federally mandated database and that has been mandated. because of the liability issues the airlines are never going to pass the information from alaska to united to delta. it's just that could happen, too much liability. there has to be a way to track the bad apples. no difference in how we do sexual predators. and on that topic away to track all the state databases on sexual predators, the airlines ought to know who they are so they're not sitting next to her unaccompanied minors. so again, i don't who puts the pressure on the doj with the local city council council stae prosecutors, but you can't say i'd rather published or go after

this high-profile case and not the guy that rick the tray table off. >> thank you for that comment period and next question. >> thanks, everybody for being here. this question is for -- i think you bring up some good points about we want to have regulatory process over this and i think the regulations do give us that and the captains authorities peace, right? so why is it that we always seem to be fighting with our management over captains authority can would it exist, when it doesn't exist? it doesn't seem to be equal throughout all the airlines, you know? we think we believe one thing maybe from a unique perspective what captains authority is, and that just doesn't seem to be level across all the carriers. maybe the faa thinks something different about captains authority. but i think this particular

these place into captains authority, and it will play an important part at solving some of these issues if we can establish exactly what that means throughout the entire operation. your comments, sir. >> our allah reflect what apartt in a meeting on tuesday as captains authority in my opinion is sacred. from that relationship with the company something i'm not, that we are not in the middle of. it's one of those which is going to come first, so it is constant work. it has begun to specific incidences of what actually occurred. if you're talking broad-based, then you got the proper form here to deal with your operators. i do want to give you a bureaucratic answer. i want to get a straight answer but it's a relationship you've got with your company that needs to be reinforced.

>> i appreciate that. i just see that as one of the bases of solving some of these issues really, and the training to go along with that and maybe somma help identify what that means across carriers, but thank you for your work on that. >> it's one of the bases. i think that's one who thinks are trying trying to get across is there's no magic wand, no silver bullet, no one thing that will solve this. it will be continuous cooperation and work. and we are there to work. >> not sure who was next. >> my question goes right along with his. for 27 of the 3636 years i flew for the airlines, in the operations manual there was a sentence that i relied on heavily, and it went something like by the way, it's not in the flight and manuals anywhere. when the captain is aware of passenger appears intoxicated, he she will be playing that

passed passenger. it was really, really simple. and again, there is no single fix but for my career that was a policy that i followed directly. it was a direct policy. it said this is what you will do. you will deny board or deploying the passenger. it's not in the flight manual. my point is that from, it wasn't that didn't have intoxicant passengers compass when flighted in came a i said if tell me that person appears intoxicated, they are off the flight attendants felt great support from the policy from that approach, and i think that if we started with the basics, we can do all this great stuff from washington down but if we strove with the basic crew, supported the flight attendant in the effort, intoxication is not the only factor, but that was the focus back years ago of that one sentence that all had to do was go boom, it's in the manual, if

they appear intoxicated they are off. the flight attendants had to make a decision, is this person, do they fear intoxicated and that was only measure they needed. and yeah, we kicked a few people off but it was straightforward simple and it was addresses this issue captains authority quite clearly. i would suggest that you start with the basics, you consider a procedural approach to this where you do define what the captains authority is explicitly tightfisted for me and made my job easier because i just, it's cut and dry. could you address that? >> was that for me? does that need to be in the manual? captain's authority is captain's authority. with authority comes responsibility and if the captain has i think the

regulations give the captain sufficient authorities, on that point is the responsibility of this decision, whether it's in the manual or not. it's pretty clear in the regulations the captains charges a safe operation of the airplane. >> thank you for that. it sounds like a gets back to unlike issue where discussing here, which is better communication between all the stakeholders. it sounds like we had that codified. perhaps we just don't look bit of a refresher and discussion to reaffirm what that means in the circumstances. >> i think those are generic answers that i'm going to press you on. each pilot will find a different evaluation for each situation that otherwise should be fairly clearly defined. and having in the manual the way that i stated, quite frankly, for those who did know it was in the manner they would negotiate the issue with a flight

attendant. i think you can generically answer these things, but also specific procedures enable, you know, and adjudication on the spot of appropriate behavior. so no, i don't think you just say hey, captain is ultimate responsible. i think in some situations you need to better define it so it isn't debated in the situation, that is well understood. i would wonder, sara, what you think of such a policy? >> i would agree. it's very helpful when it's in black and white and is very clear and everyone knows what the policy is. anyone can point to it right there and there's no discussion about it. oftentimes when there's a time crunch and sometimes there is an effort at the gates to dedicate people on the play because frankly gets them out of their hair, so there can be competing interests in what could can loe a subjective situation and the

fact of and that is that if they appear intoxicated they don't belong on the flight. there will be another one in a couple of hours. >> an excellent point, something that needs to be discussed and probably clarified, absolutely. i know with some of the questions we want to get you. >> good morning. one of the technology pieces no one has discussed yet is putting some cameras and video recording in the cabin. one of the issues we talked about when we have disruptive passenger is the difficulty in getting the evidence. you can put six, seven, eight cameras in the back that cost very little nowadays and you can put in every ten feet in the overhead. and what are the effects of not having it as evidence or prosecution is a great deterrent. because when people know they're being watched and recorded, they going to moderate their behavior

unless they are already off the deep end. so is this something that's been discussed? >> alexy, , i'm guessing that probably goes to you, i'm sorry. >> interesting question and proposal. definitely has been discussed. however, there are some roadblocks for that. mainly from our legal division. [inaudible] >> pardon? >> you want me to help you? >> go ahead. >> are some issues with having this cameras in the cabin. i will tell you that right off the bat sometimes creates an atmosphere that is not as relaxed and not, not as easily able to resolve issues and be as good issues brief there's also issues when there is an event in the cabin, you know, i just jump to because maybe it's easier for me to talk about this. the video angle doesn't always

show the actual event, and when there's an incident and there's discovery, people can grab that video and use it to tell a very different story are part of the story that doesn't tell really what happened on that flight. and so while there may be, it may serve as a bit of a deterrent on the front end, the liabilities with it on the back end and the ability to use it in a way that would be detrimental to the employees the rest of the passengers compete with the airline may not rise to the love of saying it a good idea to have those aide-de-camp on the plane. our position has been that in general is not for all of those reasons. although your point is taken well, that people out there with their phones and try and use that as evidence against us, why not turn the tables on that. when you think about the police monitors and how people view those videos or portions of those videos and how they have

an idea about what happened in that event without being there, start to take some of it in what i would say is from our view at this point it would be more negative than positive in the cabin with those videocameras. >> again, with the technology and what's available out there, that's just a number of cameras you could put in and the cost is minimal and i think certification issues would be minimal as well. i would respectfully disagree with that. >> i just like to add from an enforcement standpoint, a good presentation and crew report for more than sufficient to aggressively pursue enforcement. >> thank you. next question. >> good morning, jim johnson, staff lawyer here at alpa, and i learned at this meeting of a program lax has and maybe it goes to chief everson and mr.

bidwell, where they are, if it's not a felony, it's most likely not going to be prosecuted. and most of them are not felonies. these events happen on the airplane. but lax are apparently taking program for the interior department and the police officers doing the investigation after they removed the person, they write a ticket, $500 fine, whatever the number is, and that's treated just like a ticket. they don't show up and arrest, you do get some prosecution. it's instant enforcement and it is something that may be a deterrent. and i don't know, chief, or if you or anyone else is aware of the program or you think it has merit? >> i am not aware of the program they haven't lax you're describing. i am aware that it is challenging sometimes to get things that happened in flight

prosecuted. so obviously if that happens in flight we talked a little bit about that, its federal jurisdiction and it's been my experience that the fbi has always been very receptive to taking those cases, conducting that investigation. but it does become challenging sometimes at the prosecution level for things to go through. i think that is largely dependent upon the severity of what happened. so lower level severity, nobody was hurt, maybe not property damage type of thing. it made it less likely for them to take those types of cases. it's interesting about lax. i'll have to reach out and find out what it is they're doing. >> unfortunately we're out of time. i'd like to thank each of our panelists for the insight and participation to i think we had a great discussion and good information and hopefully we can continue to as we move forward. so thank you very much. [applause]

>> matt, thank you and thank you to all of our panelists. it's a lot to think about. perhaps we can begin to see if your incidence of unruly passengers in the future as we go forward. we are not at her first networking break. you notice time i for 20 minutes late. we will be on time coming out of lunch at 1:30. our first coffee break is sponsored by aviation clean air, and that's it. enjoy. we will see right back in your seats at 10:50. ♪ >> unfortunately we were not able to bring you the life remarks of senator bob casey earlier who talked but his legislation on in-flight sexual

assaults. you can watch that online@ourwebsitec-span.org. we will be back at about 12:30 eastern as the faa as he did minister will speak at this did minister will speak at this forum hosted by air line pilots association labor union. >> there are lots of people, i do want my kid to read stories that are sad, disturbing, downbeat, whatever, right? that's like not a totally legitimate thing to say, i want to choose as if it when my kid understands stuff that might

bring them grief but there's also certain point beyond which it's like well, they are 14, i quake would induce them to the idea that not everything is perfect outside of your all-white suburb? so all of those factors i think swirled together to create the perfect dumpster fire of mass censorship of berks by marginalize people. >> science-fiction author cory doctorow will be our guest on "in depth" fiction addition life sunday at noon eastern discussing his latest book "walkaway" ." interact with cory doctorow by phone, twitter or facebook. our special series "in depth" fiction edition with author cory doctorow sunday live from noon to 3 p.m. eastern on booktv on c-span2. >> we have found out over the last two years that many of the

many narratives that were introduced in the 2016 election were not american origin, that they were crafted by ford intelligence agencies outside the united states. >> sunday night, former cia intelligence officer and his book the block to destroy democracy. >> these are very slow propaganda warfare techniques use by russia but which could never keep pace with the news media world of the 1960s, \70{l1}s{l0}\'70{l1}s{l0}, \80{l1}s{l0}\'80{l1}s{l0} '80s, even the '90s. it's only when social media came to its height of its power, the ability of you to pick up a fake story and, in fact, three or four at ten of the people inside your facebook channel or your twitter feed, and then they would do the same thing in a a daisy chain to create essentially an unbreakable link

of false narratives. at that point nothing you believe before can ever be real because you will abandon it on the basis that it's been super reinforced by everyone you know including the president. >> watch "after words" sunday night on booktv. >> at a committee hearing a panel of foreign policy analysts answered questions about foreign agents spreading misinformation of social media to affect the political process and global economic markets. the first question him about russian affairs in the 2015 election. send to richard burr chairs the senate intelligence committee this is two and a half hours.