US airline group pushing for updated laws for flights

A trade group representing U.S. and foreign airlines said unruly behavior on flights had increased dramatically in recent years. The International Air Transport Association said fewer than 500 incidents of unruly behavior were reported in 2007, while more than 6,000 were reported in 2011. The behaviors include passengers charging the cockpit to drunken acting out among passengers at their seats, the Chicago Tribune reported Monday. During a flight from Iceland to New York, a drunken passenger who was attempting to assault another passenger had to be bound with duct tape, the newspaper said. Trade group representative Perry Flint said that the laws for international flights need to be updated. They were established, the Tribune said, at a meeting in Tokyo in 1963 with representatives from 185 countries. "Lots of changes have taken place over the past 50 years. The old rules no longer do a good job of addressing this problem," Flint said. For example, the laws are written so the country where a plane is registered has jurisdiction over incidents that occur in the air. But the number of planes under lease has grown dramatically, making that arrangement obsolete, some say. The International Civil Aviation Organization, a branch of the United Nations, has said a meeting would take place in March to tackle the issue although a location has yet to be announced, the newspaper said.