Norwegian transport under pressure. Planes and trains full of... aggression

The issue of transport worker safety was brought to the Storting in January. Minister of Transport Jon-Ivar Nygård presented detailed data concerning flights, railways, and ferries. The statistics cover both the period before the pandemic and the years after it ended. Several segments are recording record-high numbers of reports.

In 2016, the Civil Aviation Authority received 154 reports of aggressive passengers. The following year there were 164, and in 2018, 256. In 2019, the number rose to 338. During the pandemic, it dropped to 180 in 2020 and 207 in 2021.

After the pandemic, there was a sharp increase in reports. In 2022, 292 incidents were recorded. In 2023, the number jumped to 568. In 2024, it reached 623, and in 2025 it was 572. On average, around 600 incidents have been reported annually over the past three years.

On the railways, 570 cases of aggressive behavior and violence were reported in 2019. In 2020, there were 755, and in 2021, already 1,589. In 2022, the number dropped to 1,464, only to rise again to 1,782 in 2023. In 2024, there were 2,359 reports. Preliminary data for 2025 indicate a level similar to 2024.

On ferries, a separate record of crew harassment has been kept since 2024. In the first quarter of 2024, 4 such cases were reported, 6 in the second quarter, 2 in the third, and 4 in the fourth. In 2025, the numbers were 5, 3, 12, and 2 cases in the respective quarters. Abusive treatment is one of the most common categories in the reports.

For buses, local trains, and express boats, there is currently no single national database. Responsibility lies with county municipalities, and the scale of the phenomenon has not been collected centrally. The state administration signals that the lack of complete data limits comparisons between transport segments. At the same time, reporting detail is being increased in several areas.