Earlier today I wrote about a Spirit Airlines incident at Hartsfield–Jackson Atlanta International Airport in which a gate agent was viciously attacked by a deranged pregnant passenger. I want to focus our attention on an issue that was casually mentioned by local media in Atlanta: does Spirit Airlines employ off-duty cops to protect agents?
Does Spirit Airlines Employ Off-Duty Cops To Protect Gate Agents?
The story was first picked up Fox 5 Atlanta, which shared about the incident and also mentioned that Spirit Airlines has historically hired off-duty cops to monitor airport gate areas:
Spirit is one of the few airlines that would bring on off-duty officers to monitor its gates in the past. That deployment has apparently been discontinued.
We are not aware of other airlines that engage in that practice and asked Spirit Airlines to clarify if it does indeed use off-duty cops in airports.
Spirit Airlines refused to say yes or no, telling Live And Let’s Fly it won’t comment on the security measures it takes.
That has not stopped rumors from swirling in online chat rooms that the airline still employed off-duty cops to protect its employees and passengers.
Spirit SHOULD Hire Security To Protect Against Hooligans
We’ve covered incident after incident in which aggressive passengers attack other passengers or Spirit employees. Here’s a sampling:
- Spirit Airlines Captain Runs Out Of Cockpit After Woman Yells “I Hope Y’All Crash And Die!”
- Brawl: Spirit Airlines Employees Drawn Into Gate Fight
- Spirit Airlines Agent Strikes Woman On Head After She Taunts Him
- Chaos Onboard: Woman Attacks Two Spirit Airlines Flight Attendants
- Woman Drags Flight Attendant By Ponytail, Punches Another In Face On Raucous Spirit Airlines Flight
Cheap fares are partially responsible for attracting this caliber of passengers, but whatever the root cause, Spirit Airlines should seriously consider extra protection at airports…if it does not already do so.
Employing even one officer at every busy Spirit Airlines station could not only help break up fights earlier and with less damage but also dissuade passengers from acting up in the first place if they are aware that private security is waiting in the wings.
CONCLUSION
It is interesting to consider that Spirit Airlines once employed private security guards to help protect its employees and passengers and may still be doing so. If it is not, hopefully it will strongly consider doing so: that might reduce the number of incidents that seem to spring up often on Spirit Airlines.
Time to imagine anyone wanting to work in these type of jobs. Most are very low paid and passengers are just nut cases. Then when anything goes wrong the GA gets blamed for delays, etc.
At some point you have to have excessive punishments to prevent people from doing this stuff. Sure some are alcohol/drug related but far from all.
Spirit security should use prison guards. They are used wrestling combative unpleasant customers in confined spaces.
I’ve never flown Spirit,but flying to my second home in northern Michigan,Denver Air,boarded next to a Spirit gate at ORD.I noted nothing down market but rather the usual Chicago mashup,Polish/German/Irish/Italian,some black and latino,heading to FLL.Looked fine to me.
The passenger mix depends. I’ve seen the same on most occasions, but I’ve also flew Frontier in August 2021 from Miami to Atlanta when Spirit had their operational meltdown. My flight had many Spirit passengers who rebooked on Frontier (I also booked last minute, and it was pretty cheap). The passengers on that flight fit the stereotype. There was an incident at the gate with a girl and the gate agent dress-coding her, a passenger moved to an extra-legroom seat without paying for it, and the lady next to me was quite nice and friendly, but she had just gotten divorced and was a little too friendly, and was drinking a bit during the flight. Nothing wrong with her, I cannot relate to what she was going through, but I did feel a bit uncomfortable around her as a 17 year old at the time.
something interesting is that theses flights that cause lots of news almost never happen from an NYC airport. NYC passangers may not be the nicest, though they are too busy minding their business just wanting to get from point A to B on time.
Police always act morally and ethically, so this clearly makes good business sense.