Southwest Airlines worker punched, woman arrested

DALLAS — A woman has been arrested after punching a Southwest Airlines employee in the head during boarding for a flight out of a Dallas airport, police said.

Arielle Jean Jackson, 32, was arrested Saturday afternoon at Love Field, Dallas police said. Police said Jackson has been charged with aggravated assault.

The incident happened during the boarding process for a flight from Dallas to New York’s La Guardia Airport, Southwest Airlines spokesman Chris Mainz said.

Police said that Jackson first had a verbal altercation with an operations agent at the back of the plane and was asked to exit. As Jackson was exiting, she had another verbal altercation with a second operations agent that turned physical, with Jackson striking the agent on the head with a closed fist, police said.

Mainz said the the operations agent, a woman, was taken to a hospital and released Saturday night.

Jackson was in Dallas County jail on Sunday on $10,000 bond. Jail records did not list an attorney for her.

The incident comes amid a surge in unruly airline passengers this year, who sometimes become violent.

Airlines reported about 3,000 cases of disruptive passengers between Jan. 1 and mid-June, according to the Federal Aviation Administration, which began tracking it this year. About 2,300 of those incidents involved passengers who refused to obey the federal requirement to wear a face mask.