Woman Gets 4 Months After Shoving Flight Attendant, Spitting on a Passenger

A New York woman was sentenced to four months in federal prison after spitting on a passenger, then shoving a flight attendant on an American Airlines flight in February 2021, a year that saw a record number of incidents of unruly and violent behavior on airplanes.

Kelly Pichardo, a 32-year-old single mother who lives in the Bronx, was sentenced on Aug. 29 in U.S. District Court in Arizona, where Judge Dominic W. Lanza also ordered her to pay $9,123 in restitution. After her release from prison she will be placed on supervised release for 36 months, according to court documents.

“There is a line between boorish behavior on an airplane and criminal activity, and the defendant clearly crossed it,” Gary Restaino, the United States Attorney for the district of Arizona, said in a statement.

Ms. Pichardo, who has a 12-year-old daughter and lives with her mother, did not respond to requests for comment. She pleaded guilty in May to one count of interference with a flight crew member.

“Ms. Pichardo is very ashamed of her actions on the plane that day,” her lawyer, Ana Botello, said in an email.

The altercation occurred as mask mandates and Covid-19 restrictions led to tension on airplanes, where unruly and violent passengers shoved, struck and yelled at flight attendants and other passengers.

In May 2021 a woman punched a flight attendant repeatedly, bloodying her face and chipping three of her teeth. Within days of that attack, two major airlines, American and Southwest, which had temporarily stopped serving alcohol on flights in an effort to cut down on bad behavior, postponed plans to begin serving it again. Both airlines have since resumed alcohol sales. The woman in that case was sentenced to 15 months in prison.

Ms. Pichardo was flying first class from Dallas to Los Angeles with a friend on Feb. 24, 2021, according to prosecutors and court documents that described the case.

The friend used a racial slur as they were talking, prompting a Black passenger who was sitting behind the two women to touch Ms. Pichardo on the shoulder and admonish them.

Ms. Pichardo spit on the passenger, who suffered “racist abuse,” prosecutors said.

She became “even more irate” as other passengers tried to record the interaction with their cellphone cameras, according to court documents.

A flight crew member came to defuse the situation, and Ms. Pichardo lunged at him and pushed him in the chest as she tried to move past him.

The flight…