• by Tanya Gazdik , Yesterday

The Department of Transportation is launching an effort ahead of the busy holiday season encouraging manners and common courtesy for airline travelers. 

"The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You" is meant to "jumpstart a nationwide conversation around how we can all restore courtesy and class to air travel," according to the DOT.

The DOT cites a rise in bad behavior on airplanes.

“In the campaign's announcement, the department cited worrying trends that have festered in among travelers for years, including 13,800 unruly passenger incidents since 2021, a 400% increase in inflight outbursts since 2019, and one in five flight attendants experiencing "physical incidents" in 2021,” according to USA Today. 

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is urging travelers to dress with respect, keep control of their children, help pregnant and elderly women with placing their bags in overhead bins and says thank you to flight attendants and please and thank you in general. 

“Bringing civility back, I think, enhances the travel experience for everybody,” Duffy said of this vision for the “golden age of transportation" during an exclusive interview on Fox Business. “Sometimes you just have to ask people, ‘Hey, let’s maybe go back to an era where we didn’t wear our pajamas to the airport. We actually might dress up a little bit.'”

“Golden Age of Transportation” was one of the taglines introduced on the DOT’s social media pages earlier this year. 

There is no indication on the DOT newsroom about a media plan or how the administration plans to get the word out its civil travel goals other than Duffy conducting interviews. 

A Yahoo News post about the subject on Facebook generated a range of reactions from users, including some critical of airline business practices.