Miami Beach is a hot mess, with a state of emergency declared after crowds grew so large and boisterous over the weekend that law enforcement could not control them. Are cheap fares from American Airlines and JetBlue to blame for this bedlam?
Miami Unrest: American Airlines + JetBlue To Blame?
My answer at the outset: no, people must be held responsible for exercising personal responsibility rather than blaming others. Neither American nor JetBlue forced anyone to come to Miami and engage in uncivilized behavior.
Nevertheless, it is not surprising that this happened when American Airlines and JetBlue offered Spirit Airlines-level $31 transcontinental fares to Miami. Heck, these fares included carry-on items and were so widely available earlier in the month that is no wonder youth from across the country decided to descend to Miami to party. It has been a long year of lockdown…
Would this poor behavior have happened absent the cheap fares from American and JetBlue? Probably, though perhaps to a lesser extent. Miami Beach has always been a frenzied spring break destination and young people generally find a way there, no matter what the airfare costs. It also isn’t clear how many of the young people are local versus out-of-town visitors.
But have you seen the pictures and videos? So many? It’s like a slingshot: people have been held back so long that the momentum is almost unstoppable.
The Miami Beach curfew isn’t going so well pic.twitter.com/ixkuVLqc5v
— Daniel Uhlfelder (@DWUhlfelderLaw) March 21, 2021
Whoever you care to blame, Miami Beach is a mess right now and the cheap fares did not help. Let’s hope COVID-19 numbers don’t spike.
CONCLUSION
I personally believe it is unreasonable to blame super-cheap airfares on the trouble in Miami. Nevertheless, the dirt cheap airfare seems to have brought in a lot of people who perhaps otherwise would not have bothered to go (including myself).
I write this with a $70 r/t trip to Miami coming up…but unlike the revelers, I’m just turning around and coming right home. It will be a work day for me…
The students should not be blaimed as well. A very low class crowd came to Miami, not the average spring break crowd.
Very cheap airfare for travel to the Miami area this season has been claimed to be a contributor to this situation by Miami’s leading political figures in public or private. And it is without a doubt a big factor in what has happened.
As with the very cheap carriers in Europe that serve Europe’s more “low class” “beach” party crowds and help people to get loaded with alcohol and drugs at far lower cost than in their own home areas, they have a reputation for being more rowdy than average.
The cheaper the airfare for travel to the Miami area, the more money the visitors have to spend on alcohol and other drugs. High alcohol and illegal drug consumption levels have a relationship with increased failure to be peaceful, abide with lawful orders and behave responsibly in other ways too.
Should US airlines be held responsible for flying paying passengers who are legally free to exercise their national mobility rights? Of course not. That doesn’t mean that the airlines aren’t a major contributing factor in making this scene be what it has been this past weekend.
Bring out the tear gas and water cannon…give ‘em a spring break they’ll long remember.
So there were no local residents of people who arrived by bus, car or whatever involved in any of this? They all were flown in?
This is probably the first time I’ve heard that an airline is getting mentioned as having too low a fare. If they had higher fares and only the “rich” were in Miami, then they’re discriminating etc.
To me its simple, the airlines (or greyhound for that matter if people came by bus) have nothing to do with this. Plenty of drug mules flying around the world with little balls of you name it inside of them, is that the airlines fault too? People are responsible for their own actions, and governments are responsible for how they set out guidelines, laws etc. If they didn’t want the party crowd then they should have taken measures from preventing anyone from coming to the area to vacation in the first place.
Didn’t say there no locals, but there certainly appear to be more than locals out on the beaches and on streets.
But in any case, I agree with your conclusion.
A lot of those shown in the video don’t look like college kids. Looks and sounds more like a Saturday night in Chicago’s south side. Just sayin’.
I blame the stupid Colleges and school districts that should have cancelled Spring Break during a pandemic. Some Colleges cancelled and kept students where they should be. Seriously, the mess won’t stay in Florida but will go back to the Colleges and schools these kids came from.
Most locals avoid SoBe like the plague during Spring Break.
I have to assume you wrote this hurriedly, your comments sound naive. Miami, sir, is not a “hot mess” at the moment – it is embroiled in a state of emergency, with cars being burned, teargas being deployed, and dead bodies found in alleyways. There have been approximately 1,000 arrests made. Hotels have shut rather than put employees and physical property at risk, and causeways from the mainland closed to all but residential traffic. My neighbor, an MBPD road sergeant, is now going to work in riot gear.
And your comment, “let’s hope COVID-19 numbers don’t spike,” is just plain silly. Of course they will, but the bad/sad thing is that few will have learned any lesson from their bad behavior.
My cousin Peter is a hot mess. Wal-Mart on Black Friday is a hot mess. Denver after 2 feet of snow is a hot mess. This is a dangerous, deadly state of emergency.
Did not mean to downplay it, but there is a certain irony in that this was totally foreseeable considering the actions of Governor DeSantis and the general allure of Miami during spring break.
Looks honestly like a hilariously fun time, party time in the USA- cases still collapsing, deaths falling even faster. Cage up a population for a year, not sure what even expects. People gonna party
Matt, there is a leap of logic in your argument that’s problematic here:
“You can’t blame the airlines” doesn’t equal “You can’t solely blame airlines here”.
Do the airlines take full responsibility for this mess? No.
Do the airlines take at least partial responsibility for enabling this mess? Yes (and you said “the cheap fares did not help” as well).
I’m going to guess a few of those people may have flown Spirit Airlines style fares on Spirit Airlines in to FLL as well. While I wouldn’t ever fly in to FLL if my destination was South Beach, many would.
I was at MIA yesterday morning for about 3 hours, and aside from the typically rude staff at the airport, the place didn’t look any less civil than it ever does.
Typical “blame someone else” when freedom loving politicians’ decisions have seriously unfortunate consequences. Surprised to hear little news from Ft Lauderdale, which Spirit Air actually flies to.
I wonder how many of these self entitled brats & others on spring break vacation in search of their epic Instagram posts are begging for student loan forgiveness? Just sayin
DeSantis defines the new American Patriot. Come to Florida, party, spend money, boost the local economy, but leave quickly so you can take Covid back to your home states. Florida’s gift to America. Biden should have placed restrictions on travel there as was being planned. He should still consider it.
Wow. This is a stretch. I guess anyone charged with a crime related to Spring Break revelry can blame it on cheap airfares? Please. Be real. I can see it now downtown at the court hearings: “Honest judge, I didn’t mean to get drunk and fight,….the airlines made me do it.!”
LOL….. lockdown 8:00 pm curfew – the party starts at midnight. Hopefully they didn’t get $31 hotel rooms.
I recently visited South Beach for a week — I needed a place to stay between trips abroad — and the entire area felt depressed, tired, dirty, dangerous, and unpleasant, at least compared to my visit in 2017. I really don’t understand why people spend so much money to stay at this mediocre beach with dirty sidewalks and overpriced restaurants. I feel much safer in any major Mexican beach destination than Miami Beach.
One of the problems is that Biden’s admin has this new testing protocol that means everyone has a massive hassle returning from short trips. Yes, it is OUR responsibility, but when even VACCINATION is not good enough to get us back in our own country, well, this is why many of my college students opt for FL over the islands open to them or whatever, delayed honeymoons, you name it. People want a beach, there is not a CA option, and the “Gulf” is not the ocean. So it’s FL or the out of country options with the expensive hassle. The Biden Admin needs to at LEAST allow proof of full vaccination as a way back into our OWN NATION. This is NOT a political statement. If vaccination is so great, why is it not good enough for an American to be allowed into his or her own nation? Then we complain that the Florida beaches are full. Duh.
Being a South Fkorida resident (between fll and mia) I don’t blame the airlines. It has always been a challenge when you have younger people drinking and being rowdy. Spring Break has been a “party” for decades.
These young people made bad judgment calls and should be held accountable for their actions. If I blame anyone, I would blame our governor who basically removed the ability for local government to enforce pandemic rules.
@Sarah Americans are “allowed in to his or her own nation” any time they present themselves at US immigration. I could show up at the Laredo border crossing exhibiting every COVID symptom out there, and they’d still have to let me in.
All humans, regardless of nationality, are prohibited from boarding flights to the United States without a negative COVID test. I flew back from Brazil on Saturday. My flight was at 10:00 PM, I got a rapid test done at a local pharmacy at 2:00 PM and it cost $20. It’s not really much of a barrier.
College is the new junior high school, …. they act accordingly. Gap years, parents who actually think some of their kids are college material, studious, focused, well-mannered, etc. should look at these results. $60 airfares and $30 hotel rooms do add to it and are obviously going to bring a wild party crowd as well as other interlopers who haven’t seen a school/ college/ book in years, if at all. How anyone can call this a Spring Break with armed military and tanks rolling down the street is delusional. “Where The Boys Are” (movie)….yeah.