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U.S. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy is encouraging travelers to dress up when making their way to the airport in an effort to “restore courtesy and class to air travel.”
On Wednesday, the DOT launched a new public awareness campaign dubbed, “The Golden Age of Travel Starts with You,” aimed at starting a nationwide conversation around civility during the air travel experience. The initiative hopes to decrease the number of unruly incidents between passengers, gate workers, flight attendants, and pilots that the department said has seen a significant increase in recent years.
As part of the campaign, Duffy posed a list of five questions each traveler should ask themselves during the holiday season:
- Are you helping a pregnant woman or the elderly with placing their bags in the overhead bin?
- Are you dressing with respect?
- Are you keeping control of your children and helping them through the airport?
- Are you saying thank you to your flight attendants?
- Are you saying please and thank you in general?
“People dress up like they’re going to bed when they fly,” Duffy said in an interview with Fox News. “Help people out, be nice, be courteous, and so we want to push people as we come into a really busy travel season—help people out, dress up, bring civility back to travel, and I think everyone’s experience is going to be that much better.”
According to DOT data, incidents of in-flight outburst have risen 400 percent since 2019, along with reports of unruly passengers increasing by six times their previous levels from 2020-21. Presently, the FAA has received 1,431 reports of unruly passengers in 2025.
The campaign announced with the release of an accompanying video that harkens back to a 1950s and ’60s America, displaying images and videos of men and women boarding airplanes dressed in formal business attire—suits, ties, and dresses—before flipping to a modern-day montage of in-flight fights and passengers sprawled out shoeless across multiple seats.
Following the announcement, many travel experts expressed doubt that the messaging would have any affect on air travel, according to reporting from CBS News.
The new civility push comes as the FAA is expecting the busiest Thanksgiving travel week in 15 years. More than 360,000 flights are expected throughout the holiday periods, with Tuesday being the peak travel day with more than 52,000 flights scheduled.
“Thanks to the dedication of our air traffic controllers [ATCs] and every FAA employee, we are ready for the holiday rush and take pride in helping travelers reach their friends and families during this important time of year,” said FAA Administrator Bryan Bedford. “I am deeply grateful to our entire FAA team. Even through a period of record-high traffic, their unwavering commitment keeps the system running safely.”
Last week proved to be a busy time for Duffy, Bedford, and their respective agencies. In addition to the public awareness campaign and busy holiday travel, the FAA announced Thursday it would dole out $10,000 bonuses to 776 ATCs and technicians who maintained record attendance during the record-long, 43-day government shutdown.
