In July, Vaughn College Adjunct Professor Loretta Alkalay was featured in a Bloomberg Law news article entitled, “Unruly Airline Passengers Rarely Face U.S. Criminal Prosecution.” The article focused on misconduct on airliners in the past year and the governing by a patchwork of federal, local and state agencies.

More than 3,500 reports of unruly passengers on flights have been logged this year by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). According to the FAA, only 581 were deemed serious enough to prompt a formal investigation.

Alkalay, who teaches a drone law course at Vaughn and is the former FAA eastern regional counsel, commented on the issue at hand. “It is a problem,” said Loretta Alkalay. “The state police usually don’t have jurisdiction. Once it’s in flight, that’s the fed’s jurisdiction and the U.S. attorneys are overwhelmed by more serious cases.”

The full article is available here.