Latest news with #SaraNelson
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
This Country Will Now Fine Airline Passengers for Standing Up Too Early After Landing
Turkey is now fining antsy passengers who stand up before the plane comes to a complete stop at the jetbridge. Fliers who unbuckle their seat belts, stand up, or enter the aisle could be fined up to $70, according to the new regulations. The new fine is to stop passengers from gathering their items while the plane is still in motion, which puts fellow fliers' safety at next time you fly into Turkey, you might want to take a beat before standing up to get your luggage, because if you try to snag that bag too quickly, you could have to pay a hefty fine. In May, the Turkish Directorate General of Civil Aviation announced new rules that will fine any passengers who unbuckle their seat belts, stand up, enter the aisle, or open the overhead bin before the plane has come to a complete stop after taxiing to the jet bridge or parking space for deplaning, the Associated Press reported. According to the agency's announcement, 'Passengers who do not comply with the rules will be reported to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation through a disruptive passenger report, and an administrative fine will be imposed." The announcement does not say exactly how much the fine will be. However, the AP noted that some local media are reporting it could be up to $70. To ensure every traveler is well aware of the rules, the AP noted that commercial airliners operating in Turkey must now revise their in-flight announcements to include a mention of the rule and warn passengers that they must remain seated or face both the fine and having their name reported to the Turkish Directorate of Civil Aviation. EuroNews reported that Turkish Airlines has already updated its landing announcement, which now states that 'passengers who do not comply with the rules will be reported to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation through a Disruptive Passenger Report, and an administrative fine will be imposed in accordance with the applicable legal regulations.' And in a move most travelers will applaud, the AP noted that the announcement must also include a reminder that passengers should let the row ahead of them exit first before they attempt to rush by, causing a bottleneck. 'Despite announcements informing passengers of the rules, many are standing up before the aircraft reaches its parking positions and before the seat belt sign is turned off,' the directorate shared in a statement with the AP. 'This behavior compromises the safety of passengers and baggage, [and] disregards the satisfaction and exit priority of other travelers.' There's also plenty of precedent for this new rule. As the New York Times pointed out, in the U.S., passengers can also be fined for failing to follow crew instructions or "engaging in disruptive or violent behavior." In fact, those fines can reach up to $37,000 per violation, and passengers who are particularly poorly behaved could even face jail time or an investigation by the FBI. Sara Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA, shared a statement of support with the AP, noting that passengers should remain seated and should always adhere to the guidelines set out by crew members. Nelson added, 'Listen to your flight attendants and follow crewmember instructions to get to your destination safely and to avoid unnecessary delay." Read the original article on Travel & Leisure
Miami Herald
29-05-2025
- Miami Herald
Air Passengers Threatened With Fines for Standing Up Too Soon
If you're the kind of airline passenger who jumps up the moment the wheels touch down, Turkey's aviation authority wants you to think twice-or risk a fine. A new directive targets travelers who unbuckle too early, grab for overhead bins, or clog the aisle before the aircraft has fully stopped. Prompted by a surge in complaints and safety violations, the Turkish Directorate of Civil Aviation now requires airlines to update in-flight announcements warning that such behavior will be monitored, recorded, and could result in penalties. Newsweek has reached out to Turkish Airlines for comment. The revised rules highlight a growing global effort to curb disorderly in-flight behavior, especially during taxiing-one of the most dangerous phases of any flight. Turkish authorities said the updated policy aims to promote safety and ensure smoother disembarkation by curbing what has become a widespread issue. Passengers who unbuckle, stand, or begin retrieving their luggage before the aircraft has come to a full stop on the tarmac could be fined up to $70, according to Turkish media. Though the aviation authority has not confirmed the exact amount, it said the new penalties are intended to deter growing noncompliance. Airlines flying in and out of Turkey are required to update their standard announcements. The new script must inform passengers to remain seated with seat belts fastened until the plane reaches its final stop and explicitly state that violations will be reported. In the U.S., similar rules apply. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mandates that passengers must have their seat belts "properly secured during taxiing, takeoff, landing, and any other time when instructed to by crewmembers." While civil penalties are possible, actual fines for seat belt violations are rare and typically imposed alongside other "unruly" behavior. Turkish Directorate of Civil Aviation: "Despite announcements informing passengers of the rules, many are standing up before the aircraft reaches its parking positions and before the seat belt sign is turned off. This behavior compromises the safety of passengers and baggage, disregards the satisfaction and exit priority of other travelers." Sara Nelson, President, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA: "Listen to your flight attendants and follow crewmember instructions to get to your destination safely and to avoid unnecessary delay." The timeline for enforcement remains unclear, but Turkish authorities have ordered airlines to implement the new announcement guidelines immediately. The fines are part of a broader effort to make landings safer, calmer, and more respectful for everyone on board. This article includes reporting by The Associated Press. Related Articles NATO Ally Gains Ground With Stealth Jet Rivaling Clubs Offering First-Class Service, Food and ViewsTurkey's Erdogan Has Become One of World's Most Powerful Men-And Trump AllyNATO Issues Warning About Defense Spending Amid Threats from Russia, China 2025 NEWSWEEK DIGITAL LLC.
Newsweek
29-05-2025
- Newsweek
Air Passengers Threatened With Fines for Standing Up Too Soon
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. If you're the kind of airline passenger who jumps up the moment the wheels touch down, Turkey's aviation authority wants you to think twice—or risk a fine. A new directive targets travelers who unbuckle too early, grab for overhead bins, or clog the aisle before the aircraft has fully stopped. Prompted by a surge in complaints and safety violations, the Turkish Directorate of Civil Aviation now requires airlines to update in-flight announcements warning that such behavior will be monitored, recorded, and could result in penalties. Newsweek has reached out to Turkish Airlines for comment. Why It Matters The revised rules highlight a growing global effort to curb disorderly in-flight behavior, especially during taxiing—one of the most dangerous phases of any flight. Turkish authorities said the updated policy aims to promote safety and ensure smoother disembarkation by curbing what has become a widespread issue. A Turkish Airlines Airbus A350-941 comes in to land at Heathrow Airport in west London on April 29, 2024. A Turkish Airlines Airbus A350-941 comes in to land at Heathrow Airport in west London on April 29, To Know Passengers who unbuckle, stand, or begin retrieving their luggage before the aircraft has come to a full stop on the tarmac could be fined up to $70, according to Turkish media. Though the aviation authority has not confirmed the exact amount, it said the new penalties are intended to deter growing noncompliance. Airlines flying in and out of Turkey are required to update their standard announcements. The new script must inform passengers to remain seated with seat belts fastened until the plane reaches its final stop and explicitly state that violations will be reported. FAA Rules In the U.S., similar rules apply. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) mandates that passengers must have their seat belts "properly secured during taxiing, takeoff, landing, and any other time when instructed to by crewmembers." While civil penalties are possible, actual fines for seat belt violations are rare and typically imposed alongside other "unruly" behavior. A Turkish Airlines Airbus A350-941 comes in to land at Heathrow Airport in west London on April 29, 2024. A Turkish Airlines Airbus A350-941 comes in to land at Heathrow Airport in west London on April 29, People Are Saying Turkish Directorate of Civil Aviation: "Despite announcements informing passengers of the rules, many are standing up before the aircraft reaches its parking positions and before the seat belt sign is turned off. This behavior compromises the safety of passengers and baggage, disregards the satisfaction and exit priority of other travelers." Sara Nelson, President, Association of Flight Attendants-CWA: "Listen to your flight attendants and follow crewmember instructions to get to your destination safely and to avoid unnecessary delay." What Happens Next The timeline for enforcement remains unclear, but Turkish authorities have ordered airlines to implement the new announcement guidelines immediately. The fines are part of a broader effort to make landings safer, calmer, and more respectful for everyone on board. This article includes reporting by The Associated Press.
Yahoo
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Is America Pissed Off Enough at Trump and Musk for a General Strike?
It's mid-April in Missoula, Montana, and Sara Nelson is asking a packed room of 8,000 people to visualize the obscenity of corporate greed and oligarchic wealth in America. 'Income inequality today is worse than it was just before the Great Depression. So picture this…' said Nelson, the president of the Association of Flight Attendants, a 50,000-member union. 'If you stack hundred-dollar bills high enough to reach one of our flights at 35,000 feet—that's nearly seven miles in the air—it would only be enough 100 dollar bills to equal just three percent of Elon Musk's worth. That's after he took the hit from the Takedown Tesla action.' The crowd howled with laughter. But the ultimate point of Nelson's speech at the University of Montana, delivered during a stop on Senator Bernie Sanders's 'Fight Oligarchy' tour, wasn't simply to rip the richest man in the world—as easy and amusing as that can be. Rather, she drew the connection between Musk's attempted wreckage of the federal government and the critical role of labor solidarity in stopping him. More than that, she has a specific plan to accomplish this. 'Nothing, nothing, NOTHING can move without our labor, and it's time to exercise our power in a united working class,' she said. 'We need to get ready for a general strike.' Nelson's call for a general strike, a tactic associated more with European nations, was audacious. But as the awesome popularity of Sanders's tour has shown, a broad rage against the oligarchic class is stirring in America, and labor leaders see this as a time to bring workers all across the country, including red states, to thwart a new Gilded Age and to protect healthcare and retirement benefits. A general strike—where masses of people across the country, unionized or not, walk off the job—is risky in the United States, where workers are largely at-will and stand to lose their jobs for striking. But Nelson, whose push for such a work stoppage was critical to ending the 2019 government shutdown, thinks it's time for dramatic action. 'People fight when they have something to fight with, or they fight when there's nothing left, and they have to fight,' Nelson told me. 'We're in the middle of those two things … It's going to be terrifying to anyone in charge that there would be that kind of solidarity, breaking through all of the tactics that have kept people down for centuries.' There are at least two specific movements for a general strike (neither of which Nelson has endorsed or rejected). One is a grassroots effort to get three million people to sign general strike cards—so far, more than 336,000 have done so—and then raise the goal to eight million, after which organizers will create a slate of demands and prepare to strike on a specific, and for now undetermined, date. It's a steep challenge, and there will surely be a competing list of priorities among left-leaning groups, but 'where we are now, we need to withhold our labor for things to get better,' said one of the organizers, Eliza Blum, who worked on the successful Fight For $15 movement in California to raise the state's minimum wage. The second effort also bills itself as a general strike, but it threads a legal needle to avoid violating federal law. The Taft-Hartley Act bans 'secondary boycotts'—actions where one union strikes in support of another union. But United Auto Workers president Shawn Fain has a way of getting around it. He's calling for unions to follow UAW's lead in aligning their contracts to expire at midnight on April 30, 2028. That sets the scene for a massive, entirely legal strike on May Day, 2028. The American Federation of Teachers has already approved a resolution calling on their local unions to set their contracts to expire on April 30, 2028. 'There's been talk about a 'general strike' for as long as I've been alive. But that's all it has been: talk,' Fain wrote in a column for In These Times calling for the action. And what better way to show corporations and elected officials who really runs the show? 'The fact is: without workers, the world stops running,' Fain wrote. Union membership in the United States has been in steady decline since the late 1950s; less than 10 percent of American workers are unionized, a number that sinks to less than six percent when public-sector unions are taken out of the equation. But public support for unions is near a 60-year high, according to Gallup. Last year, the polling firm found that 70 percent of Americans approve of labor unions. In the past few years, the country has witnessed successful strikes by a wide range of unions, including those representing auto workers, dock workers, communications workers in the South and actors and writers in Hollywood. It would take that kind of broad base of support to make a national general strike work, experts say. That doesn't mean everyone would have to stop working in America for a day or a longer period of time; Harvard Kennedy School of Government professor Erica Chenoweth's theory is that it takes 3.5 percent of the population (or 11 million Americans) for a non-violent social movement to succeed. But it needs to include an economically and occupationally diverse group to send a singular message to the Trump administration that the country is mad as hell and not going to take it anymore. 'I think it's important to look at the entire workforce and see what efforts could be made to demonstrate to the administration, more importantly to America, that people are not alone. There is a very large majority who don't want to lose their Social Security or Medicare, Medicaid or their democracy,' Robert Reich, who served as President Bill Clinton's Labor Secretary, told me. 'The point would be not to try to intimidate the Trump regime. The point would be to let the vast majority of Americans know that they are part of the vast majority.' Mass demonstrations might serve as a national venting session for aggrieved Americans, and might even help mobilize people in a more organized way, advocates for a general strike say. But Trump is impervious to opposition (and in fact appears to delight in it), so protests don't change his behavior. The 'write your congressman' approach just isn't working. What will work, general strike planners argue, is an action where workers stand together and show the power they have. Unlike a labor stoppage at one company or in one industry, a general strike is broader, involving workers in multiple industries and across an entire community, region or country. The grievances could be broad as well, such as general economic inequality, or preservation of popular programs such as Social Security and Medicare. It's something we're used to seeing in Europe (laborers in both the public and private sectors went on strike in Belgium recently to protest government austerity measures), but not in the U.S. There are some good reasons for that, notes Lane Windham, associate director of Georgetown University's Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor. European workers have more job protections than their American counterparts; in France (where the 'Yellow Vests' protestors of 2018-19 succeeded in getting the government to scrap a fuel tax), the right to strike is in the constitution. In the U.S., most contracts have no-strike clauses, Windham said, and in an economic strike, companies can replace striking workers. Federal workers do not have the right to strike. And without a national healthcare system, American workers stand to lose health insurance along with their jobs if they strike. 'The U.S. system is more harsh than in some other countries. Workers can easily be fired, and there's no safety net. The risks of striking are very high,' said Stephanie Luce, professor of Labor Studies at the City University of New York's School of Labor and Urban Studies. A general strike is not 'off the table, but it's a developing muscle. It will take a little bit of work,' she said. America has had some notable general strikes in its history, demonstrating both the potential for unified action and the deadly response by authorities. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 started in Martinsburg, W.V., and spread to Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and Buffalo, Windham said. People rallied in support in San Francisco and throughout the South. 'People weren't used to working for wages. They came from farms, and were not used to corporations,' she said. 'When strikes happened, entire communities got involved.' But they got beaten back, literally: The railroad company and elected officials sent in militias to quell the labor uprising, resulting in an estimated 1,000 arrests and 100 deaths. A 1919 Seattle general strike, primarily in support of shipyard workers and endorsed by 110 unions, paralyzed then port city for six days (though workers organized to deliver milk for children, pick up trash and serve 30,000 meals a day). A wave of general strikes in 1934 culminated with the creation of the National Labor Relations Act the following year. The last time American workers mounted a general strike, legislative retribution was swift. After 100,000 workers in Oakland joined in solidarity with 400 department store workers in 1946 as part of a series of post-war labor uprisings, Congress responded by passing the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act limiting union power. What would lead American workers to take the chance again on a national general strike? It comes down to the very real threat, Nelson said, of losing the very things unions built up, such as Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and basic worker rights. A general strike could be a short, she added, and perhaps—as in 2019—the mere threat of a massive walkout could do the trick. 'The more we're talking about what we're willing to do, the less likely that an actual action would have to take place. The power of this is the idea and the notion that we can do this together,' she said. Even still, it's a big ask. 'What they are really asking for is for unions and their community allies to be working together on a coordinated level that is ahistorical,' said Eugene Carroll, a longtime labor educator and organizer and a Worker Institute Fellow at Cornell University's School of Industrial and Labor Relations. But if 'there's continuing economic disruption on a big scale'—attacks on Social Security, erosion of workers' rights, more mass firings, persistent inflation—then that's 'going to allow this spark to expand,' he said. Reich used a similar analogy—and was also unsure of what will come of the smoldering fury across America. 'The tinder is there,' Reich told me. 'The material that will catch fire is certainly there. I can't tell you what specific form it will take. But I do have a feeling it will happen quite soon.'
Yahoo
22-04-2025
- General
- Yahoo
Delta Plane Bursts Into Flames on Orlando Runway as Passengers Evacuate on Emergency Slides
A Delta passenger aircraft caught fire while sitting on the tarmac in Orlando before departing for Atlanta. Passengers aboard Delta Air Lines Flight 1213 had to quickly evacuate the plane using emergency slides at Orlando International Airport on Monday, April 21. Authorities reported no injuries. The Airbus A330 was at a standstill after backing away from the gate at 11:15 a.m. EST when smoke and fire were seen coming from the back of the plane. The Federal Aviation Administration said in a statement that the smoke came from an engine fire. Fire trucks are seen pulling up to the aircraft to extinguish the flames with a firehose. An ambulance was also seen making its way to passengers de-boarding the plane. "The fire was contained and is out," an Orlando airport spokesperson told CBS News. Related: Delta Passenger Said Runways Were in 'Weird Condition,' Plane Hit the Ground 'Super Hard' and 'Went Sideways' Before Flipping Over The flight, which was headed to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, had 282 passengers, 10 flight attendants and two pilots, Delta said. The passengers were brought back to the terminal, where they waited until Delta could bring another aircraft to take them to Atlanta. "We appreciate our customers' cooperation and apologize for the experience," Delta said in a statement. "Nothing is more important than safety and Delta teams will work to get our customers to their final destinations as soon as possible." The FAA will investigate the incident. Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. The engine fire comes two months after the Flight 4819 crash on Feb. 17, when a flight from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport landed upside down at Pearson International Airport in Toronto. Authorities reported that all 80 passengers evacuated safely, despite the aircraft catching fire. Related: Everything to Know About the Delta Plane Crash in Toronto — and the Questions that Remain Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA and a flight attendant of nearly 29 years, credited the lack of fatalities to the passengers wearing their seatbelts. 'The seatbelts were key to everyone's safe evacuation on the flight and no fatalities,' Nelson told PEOPLE in February. 'If someone had not been wearing their seatbelt in this crash, the likelihood of a death would become very high.' Read the original article on People
