At the end of May, Britney Spears made the news for some drama on a flight from Cabo San Lucas to Los Angeles — not only did she smoke on the flight (which is illegal) and admit to drinking vodka, but she also complained that a flight attendant ”put the seatbelt on me and invaded my space.”

That got us wondering — what exactly are flight attendants trained to do when they come across an unruly passenger? What can they do, and what can’t they do? To find out, we spoke with flight attendants about how they manage unruly passengers when up in the air (and on the ground) and what you can do to make your next flight better for everyone.

Before takeoff, flight attendants can remove a passenger from a plane.

If a flight is still on the ground, it’s a bit easier to handle an unruly passenger because they can be removed from the plane. We’ve all seen the videos of belligerent passengers being escorted off planes by law enforcement while still at the gate — it’s not fun, but it happens.

“It’s not up to us (the flight attendants) if we want to remove someone,” said Coraline C., a flight attendant who has been working on domestic flights for the past seven years and who asked to remain anonymous for privacy reasons. “We have to communicate with the captain as to what is going on and they make the final call. They generally take our input into their final decision, but it truly isn’t in our hands.”

Coraline said in her experience the unruly passengers that usually are removed are drunk people who are combative or unable to control themselves on the ground, but that’s not all.

“During........

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