I believe that any attack on anybody on a plane, a bus, a metro, or a tram, goes under the name of a "mass" attacker because of the confined space within that tube and the people within that tube.
Therefore, I do not believe that because you are a heavy smoker is a legitimate excuse. I, for one, smoke, but regularly flying the Copenhagen-Newark route, it does not wind me up to be an axe murderer.
Yes, I can't wait to get out of the baggage control area to have a cigarette, but I think that these people who are bashing heads in a plane have something more mentally wrong with them.
Maybe smokers, plus alcohol, lots of alcohol, can't handle it. I don't know. I know only that for the next eight hours I can't smoke one the plane and have two Scotches and fall asleep for the rest of the trip.
Let's examine air rage for a moment. Thirty years ago people dressed up in a suit and tie to fly on a commercial airliner. It was something! Even today, TWA's interline rule still stands that if you are a spouse or children of a pilot you should "dress accrodingly," and that means a suit and a tie for men and dresses for a woman.
With all the discounts and everything imaginable that airlines are offering today, have we reached that class of passengers that have not previously afforded to fly, and if so, are so afraid to fly today that they have to back them up with lots of alcohol and smokes?
I don't know about you, but I vote for a smoking corner in the aircraft. I don't know what the problem is with these people, but let them have their one cigaratte instead of bashing a nose of a flight attendant.
I may be completely wrong, but reading this site and other news sites, it seems to me that the problem of air rage is not going to go away in the near future. It is just going to get worse, and I don't think it because of the smokers.
With today's holiday crowd packed aboard, it's a bus you're driving -- not an airplane -- except you can't stop at the next bus stop to throw off the offending passenger.