Federal court compels Spirit pilots back to work

A federal court granted Spirit Airlines a temporary restraining order Tuesday, compelling the pilots' union to return to status quo after what the airlines says has been 'a pervasive illegal work slowdown” that caused hundreds of flight cancellations and disrupted travel for more than 20,000 passengers in the past week.

The pilots union said Spirit Airlines pilots will fully comply with the court to help restore normal operations.

'We are hopeful that we can put this moment behind us and get back to serving our customers,” Spirit Airlines spokesman Paul Berry said in a statement.

The U.S. District Court ruling comes a day after anger and confusion boiled over at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport on Monday night as nine Spirit Airlines flights were canceled, leaving hundreds of passengers stranded, according to airport officials.

What followed was chaos as frustrated passengers clashed with Spirit employees, and law enforcement officers tried to maintain order.

Video from the Florida airport showed crowds clustered around Spirit Airlines ticket counters, with people pushing, screaming and cursing.

At one point in one of the videos, the stanchions holding in the line were knocked over, and a Broward County, Florida, sheriff's deputy was shoved to the ground. Sheriff's deputies detained three passengers and charged them with disorderly conduct, according to arrest reports.

The flight cancellations were reportedly the result of a legal dispute between the budget airline and the Air Line Pilots Association International.

About 300 Spirit Airlines flights have been canceled in the past week, according to a lawsuit Spirit filed against the union on Monday.

Authorities said the behavior of a few passengers at Fort Lauderdale Monday night caused a crowd of about 500 people to 'become enraged, fearful or visually upset.” The incident, an arrest report said, 'resembled the start of a riot.”

'All of a sudden, one particular flight got canceled, and a mob ensued up here at the front counter, in front of everyone else who had been waiting in line,” a passenger told the Fox News affiliate.

Another passenger told the station that Spirit employees 'couldn't handle what was going on, so they called in for the police.”

The mayhem in Fort Lauderdale was the latest in a string of high-profile, airline-related incidents captured on video.

Perhaps the most well-publicized came in April, when viral videos captured a passenger being forcibly removed from a United Airlines flight. The incident caused a public-relations crisis for United, which initially defended itself by stating that the passenger, David Dao, had 'refused to leave the aircraft voluntarily.”

Dao and United eventually reached an 'amicable” settlement for an undisclosed amount, the airline said.