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The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You: Trump’s Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy Unveils New Civility Campaign Ahead of Busy Holiday Travel Season

Wednesday, November 19, 2025

Campaign will help inspire return to civility and address record surge in unruly passengers disrupting travel for millions of Americans 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean P. Duffy today launched a new civility campaign titled “The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You.”

The campaign is intended to jumpstart a nationwide conversation around how we can all restore courtesy and class to air travel. This won’t just make the travel experience better for the flying public – it will ensure the safety of passengers, gate workers, flight attendants, and pilots. 

It’s not just your imagination – the data backs up the feeling that travel has become more unruly. 

  • Since 2019, the FAA has seen a 400% increase of in-flight outbursts—ranging from disruptive behavior to outright violence   
  • 13,800 unruly passenger incidents since 2021 
  • Unruly passenger reports rose 6x between 2020 and 2021 
  • 1 in 5 flight attendants experienced physical incidents in 2021 
  • 2024 saw double the number of unruly passenger events compared with 2019 

Secretary Duffy posed a few key questions every flyer should ask themselves this holiday season to help Americans reach their destinations as quickly, efficiently and comfortably as possible:  

  1. Are you helping a pregnant woman or the elderly with placing their bags in the overhead bin?
  2. Are you dressing with respect?
  3. Are you keeping control of your children and helping them through the airport?
  4. Are you saying thank you to your flight attendants?
  5. Are you saying please and thank you in general?

There’s no question we’ve lost sight of what makes travel fun – the excitement, the relaxation, the cordial conversations. Americans already feel divided and stressed. We can all do our part to bring back civility, manners, and common sense. When we can unite around shared values, we can feel more connected as a country. 
 
Along with building an all-new air traffic control system, surging air traffic control hiring, and making travel more family friendly, the Department of Transportation is committed to ushering a Golden Age of Travel for the American people.  

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