From assaulting flight attendants to smoking onboard and even indecent exposure, Canadian transportation authorities logged more than 100 reports of disruptive air passengers in 2025.
The 114 incidents also include passengers accused of inappropriate touching, instigating fights, uttering threats, sneaking onto flights, refusing to sit during landing, consuming their own alcohol, vaping cannabis, and a wide range of “intoxicated and unruly” behaviour.
In 2025, disruptive passengers caused numerous flights to be delayed, diverted or turned back to the gate. In many cases, offending passengers were arrested or escorted off flights by police. Some were even added to airline no-fly lists.
Nearly 60 per cent of all reports in 2025 came from WestJet flights, putting the Calgary-based airline’s passengers far ahead of others when it comes to disruptive behaviour. Flights to and from Calgary also made up almost 40 per cent of all reports, the most for any Canadian city.
Wesley Lesosky is the president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees’ (CUPE) airline division, which represents approximately 20,000 flight attendants at 11 airlines across Canada.
“Disruptive passengers are, unfortunately, something flight attendants deal with on a regular basis,” Lesosky told CTVNews.ca. “Needless to say, this is one highly sensitive and stressful aspect of our jobs – among many.”
From ‘smoking marijuana’ to ‘indecent exposure’
The 114 reports include a wide range of alleged bad behaviour, including a passenger who “physically assaulted a flight attendant,” another who “was actively smoking marijuana in the aircraft lavatory,” and a couple with an infant who were escorted off a flight to Edmonton by the RCMP after “hitting each other” during an argument.
Other airline guests were accused of “talking about someone on board the plane having a bomb” or “mumbling about bringing weapons on past flights.”
The reports even include a passenger who reportedly “was intoxicated and committed indecent exposure,” leading the RCMP to detain the person on arrival in Fort McMurray, Alta.
Another “intoxicated” passenger allegedly “blasted their own music and ran to the front of the aircraft while taxiing, then laid down on the floor in premium.” Police also escorted a guest off a plane in Ottawa after they were accused of “inappropriately touching another guest through seat gaps.”
Forty-five of the 114 reports were filed by flights departing or arriving at Calgary International Airport, by far the most for any Canadian city. Calgary was followed by Toronto with 27 reports and Vancouver with 21.
Nearly three out of five incidents were reported on WestJet flights for a total of 66, followed by Air Canada with 10 reports and Porter Airlines with six. Another three reports were filed by WestJet subsidiary Sunwing Airlines.
In 2025, reports were also filed by airlines operating above or near Canada, such as Aeromexico, American Airlines and British Airways.
In a statement to CTVNews.ca, a WestJet and Sunwing spokesperson said the airlines have “zero tolerance for any form of abuse directed at our employees or fellow guests.”
“Our cabin crew are extensively trained to de-escalate situations involving disruptive or unruly passengers, and we continuously review and enhance this training to ensure our front-line teams are equipped to manage challenging circumstances,” the spokesperson added. “WestJet issues written and verbal warnings when necessary and reserves the right to suspend guests from our operations, up to and including a lifetime ban as a maximum.”
Air Canada told CTVNews.ca that “the number of disruptive passenger incidents during the year is minuscule” in comparison to the more than 40 million customers it serves annually. In an email to CTVNews.ca, a Porter spokesperson said, “Behaviour that interferes with crew duties is not tolerated.”
Reports down, but many incidents go unreported
The reports were found in Transport Canada’s online aviation incident database, which is known as the Civil Aviation Daily Occurrence Reporting System, or CADORS for short. CTVNews.ca identified 117 “disruptive passenger” CADORS reports in 2025, including three duplicate entries. Transport Canada cautions such reports “contain preliminary, unconfirmed data which can be subject to change.”
The vast majority of the reports only contain a line or two of detail. The list of “disruptive passenger” reports also does not include those that were ultimately classified as “security acts,” such as an October 2025 report from a Porter flight that was met by law enforcement upon arrival in Toronto after a passenger allegedly handed a flight attendant a “manifesto” style letter.
According to Lesosky from CUPE’s airline division, disruptive passenger incidents often go unreported, depending on the severity of the situation.
“This creates a challenge onboard for flight attendants who are charged with de-escalating and ensuring the safety of everyone onboard during delays to remove disruptive passengers on the ground, or dealing with disruptive passengers until the flight reaches its final destination,” Lesosky added.
“It should also be noted that many flight attendants in Canada are not even being paid while they manage disruptive passengers on the ground, due to many airlines’ unfair and outdated practice of only paying flight attendants while their plane is in the air.”
The 114 disruptive passenger reports in 2025 are down from 176 reports in 2024, 197 in 2023 and 232 in 2022. Transport Canada also previously logged well over 1,000 incidents of passengers refusing to comply with COVID-19 mask mandates, which were in place from April 2020 to October 2022.
In a statement to CTVNews.ca, a Transport Canada spokesperson said there is zero tolerance for “behaviour that puts the safety of passengers or crew at risk.”
“Air operators are required to have approved procedures to manage incidents of unruly passengers, to ensure crew members are trained on these procedures, and reporting incidents to the operator,” the Transport Canada spokesperson explained.
“The decision to remove a passenger or divert a flight due to unruly passenger behaviour is at the discretion of the flight crew.”
