Originally Posted by justageek
We urgently need a way to make FAs, pilots, and FAMs consider the costs to the airline and passengers when they force unnecessary diversions. I think my suggestion of asking them to bear the cost is pretty reasonable. Perhaps this cost could be mitigated via an insurance mechanism, where these employees would purchase insurance policies that would cover their expenses if they force a false diversion. That way nobody is going to be bankrupted financially because of excess paranoia, but they'll at least know their insurance policy cost will be bumped up a bit each time they call a false diversion. (Kind of like your car insurance rate goes up a bit each time you get in an accident.)
What the airline would do, however, is pass the cost of this 'insurance premium' right along to the customer in a declared or undeclared fee. The airline could easy do this since "It's for your safety". Maybe some airlines would be better than others, but it seems to me like it would be just another scam for an insurance company to get richer and richer.
Also, if the employees had to pay, they would probably sue the airline or the offending passenger, since they felt in good faith that they were 'doing their job'. Or get their unions to force a pay raise to cover the policy. Airline in turn raises fars to cover the raises. Et cetera...