WASHINGTON — Air travel in the United States has become a combustible mix in which passengers aren’t the only ones treated unfairly, senators were told Thursday. Travelers all too frequently take out their frustrations on airline employees, including flight attendants and gate agents, speakers said at a Senate hearing.

Senators from both parties said airlines must improve the way they treat their passengers, but they also said airline employees must be treated with respect. Lawmakers also revived talk of a congressionally imposed “Passenger Bill of Rights.”

The Senate hearing comes after a passenger was dragged off a United Airlines flight last month and a separate incident on American Airlines in which a mother with a stroller was bullied by a flight attendant. Videos of both incidents were widely circulated on social media.

Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., said air travelers frequently tell him they “feel like they’re being treated as self-loading cargo rather than as valued consumers.”

Passengers are so fed up that they are becoming amateur detectives, Nelson said, using their cellphones to record incidents such as the removal of United passenger David Dao and the heated confrontation on the American flight.

Widely shared video of a bloodied Dao being dragged from the United flight, which he had refused to leave, sparked worldwide outrage and led to calls for a congressional crackdown on U.S. airlines.

United CEO Oscar Munoz called the incident “a mistake of epic proportions” at a House hearing this week and vowed to improve customer service.

United has settled with Dao and taken a series of steps to reduce overbooking of flights since the incident, Munoz said.

But “the fact is we wouldn’t be sitting here today if the traveling public believed the airlines cared more about them than their own bottom lines,” said Nelson, the top Democrat on the Transportation Committee.Even as lawmakers spoke, another video surfaced showing a California family who say they were forced off a Delta plane and threatened with jail if they didn’t give up one of their children’s seats on an oversold flight.

Delta said Thursday it is “sorry for what this family experienced,” and added it will reach out to Brian and Brittany Schear of Huntington Beach, Calif., to better understand what happened and find a resolution.

The Delta incident was not discussed at the Senate hearing, but Nelson and other lawmakers complained about an “explosion of fees” for services such as checked baggage, priority boarding and assigned seating, even as flights are frequently delayed and passengers with disabilities or other special needs are not treated with proper care.

“Adding insult to injury,” American Airlines announced this week it is slashing legroom in its new Boeing 737 jets to squeeze 10 more passengers on its planes, Nelson said.

Sen. Roy Blunt, R-Mo., chairman of an aviation subcommittee, said he was horrified by the April 9 video of Dao’s removal from the United flight.

“The last thing a paying airline customer should expect is a physical altercation with law enforcement personnel after boarding,” Blunt said.

Even so, Blunt said there are “hard questions” regarding the way frustrated passengers treat airline employees, including flight attendants and gate agents.

Sara Nelson, international president of the Association of Flight Attendants, said United employees have come under siege since the Dao incident.

Complaints and threats have been “pervasive at the airports, on the planes, on several media and broadcast television stations and even in our schools, churches, and neighborhoods,” she said, calling the reaction to incident “demoralizing.”

“Flight attendants had no role in this event and never would. We are aviation’s first responders and last line of defense. We save lives,” she said.