{"id":396762,"date":"2025-11-22T11:04:20","date_gmt":"2025-11-22T11:04:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/396762\/"},"modified":"2025-11-22T11:04:20","modified_gmt":"2025-11-22T11:04:20","slug":"transportation-chief-offers-advice-to-increasingly-angry-americans-lets-maybe-go-back-to-an-era-where-we-didnt-wear-our-pajamas-to-the-airport","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/396762\/","title":{"rendered":"Transportation chief offers advice to increasingly angry Americans: \u2018Let\u2019s maybe go back to an era where we didn\u2019t wear our pajamas to the airport?\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy urged Americans to do their part in creating a \u201cgolden age of travel\u201d<\/a> that\u2019s focused on being helpful, minding your manners, and dressing better.<\/p>\n

His department highlighted some statistics of travelers behaving badly, including a\u00a0400%\u202fincrease in in-flight outbursts since 2019 and the number of unruly passenger events doubling between 2019 and 2024.<\/p>\n

Of course, that span includes the pandemic, when airlines enforced mask mandates, prompting many passengers who thought COVID was a hoax to push back against crews and disrupt flights.<\/p>\n

In an interview with Fox Business<\/a> on Wednesday, Duffy noted that today\u2019s air-travel misanthropy doesn\u2019t just happen on board planes, pointing to fights occurring at baggage claim and arguments with gate agents. He added that \u201cpeople dress up like they\u2019re going to bed when they fly.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo we wanna push people, as we come into a really bad busy travel season. Help people out, be in a good mood, dress up, bring civility back to travel,\u201d Duffy said. \u201cAnd I think everyone\u2019s experience is going to be that much better.\u201d<\/p>\n

He acknowledged that some travelers may be carrying some emotional baggage while flying but urged everyone to \u201cset that aside and be good partners.\u201d<\/p>\n

That could include acts of kindness toward fellow travelers like helping someone put their luggage in the overhead bin if they\u2019re having trouble. Airlines, their staff, and airport workers will be happier for it, too, Duffy said.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd you, as you get in your plane, are going to feel that much better because everyone is channeling the same positive energy of having a great experience,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Online backlash<\/p>\n

At another point in the interview, he revisited what travelers wear, saying: \u201cSometimes you just have to ask people: \u2018Hey, let\u2019s maybe go back to an era where we didn\u2019t wear our pajamas to the airport?\u2019 We actually might dress up a little bit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Duffy\u2019s fashion advice didn\u2019t go over well<\/a> with many online, who said airlines have made the flying experience increasingly uncomfortable by packing in more passengers per plane, reducing legroom, and cutting back on amenities. That forces them to turn to other ways to find comfort\u2014like wearing pajamas.<\/p>\n

\u201cTell ya what, we\u2019ll go back to wearing nice clothes when you don\u2019t pack us in like sardines and go back to providing us with meals, pillows, and blankets again,\u201d one commenter said.<\/p>\n

Others pointed to parts of the overall travel experience that are taking a toll on passengers as well, adding that airlines and regulators should bear more of the burden for bringing back civility than passengers.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you think he means the era where the seats were comfortable & spacious, hot meals were served & planes arrived & departed at scheduled times? When passengers didn\u2019t spend hours in the terminal being delayed or worry about ATC folks in the tower getting enough sleep last nite?\u201d another commenter asked.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy urged Americans to do their part in creating a \u201cgolden age of travel\u201d that\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":396763,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1166,47499,64,32898,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-396762","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-air-travel","9":"tag-airline-industry","10":"tag-business","11":"tag-department-of-transportation","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115593023570747442","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=396762"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/396762\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/396763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=396762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=396762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=396762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}