Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary has called for a two drinks per passenger limit at airport bars to combat drunken disorder on flights and at airports.
Instances of in-flight violence have surged this summer with attacks now occurring on a weekly basis, Mr O’Leary said.
While assaults on cabin crew are of most concern, confrontations between passengers have become increasingly common, according to Mr O’Leary. He blamed a combination of alcohol with “powder and tablets”.
Mr O’Leary said: “It’s not that easy for airlines to identify people who are inebriated at the gate, particularly if they are boarding with two or three others.
“As long as they can stand up and shuffle they will get through. Then when the plane takes off we see the misbehaviour.
“We don’t want to begrudge people having a drink. But we don’t allow people to drink-drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000 feet.”
Mr O’Leary said the increase in assaults could be combated by permitting no more than two drinks per boarding pass before passengers board an aircraft. The restriction would be one of his three main recommendations for the new Labour Government.
The Ryanair chief told The Telegraph: “The airports of course are opposed to it and say that their bars don’t serve drunken passengers. But they do serve the relatives of the drunken passenger.”
Flights from the UK are particularly prone to violence, especially on services to so-called “party destinations” such as Ibiza and some Greek islands from regional airports including Liverpool, Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh.
Ryanair has resorted to searching the bags of passengers bound for Ibiza before they are allowed to board.
Mr O’Leary said: “We used to only allow them to take bottles of water on board, not realising that they were full of vodka. Now we don’t even allow them to take those.
“In the old days people who drank too much would eventually fall over or fall asleep. But now those passengers are also on tablets and powder.
“It’s the mix. You get much more aggressive behaviour that becomes very difficult to manage. And it’s not directed just at the crew. Passengers fighting with each other is now a growing trend on board the aircraft.”
Mr O’Leary issued his call after a British holidaymaker was last month convicted of sexually assaulting a flight attendant on a Ryanair flight from Newcastle to Majorca in 2023. The man touched the steward’s bottom “in a lewd way” after pretending he had credit card issues.
Last August a man was arrested on suspicion of sexually assaulting an attendant before spitting on her boss on a Jet2 flight from Manchester to Ibiza. Also in 2023, four men were removed from an easyJet plane from Manchester to Tenerife that was forced to divert to Lanzarote after violent clashes.
Sinead Quinn, who is responsible for the training of Ryanair’s 14,000 cabin crew, said the company was having to resort to passenger bans and increasingly shared information on problem flyers with peers.
She said: “The UK Is most challenging, the regions in particular. But there’s no particular profile. You have groups of young people, but it can be families and those you least expect.”
The situation is exacerbated when flights are delayed and passengers drink for several hours before boarding, according to Mr O’Leary, who said drink-fuelled violence was also an issue aboard some services from Ireland and Germany.
He said: “The biggest problem we have is when you have a day of bad delays. People are waiting around at airports and they keep lorrying alcohol into them.
“Most of our passengers show up an hour before departure. That’s sufficient for two drinks. But if your flight is delayed by two or three hours you can’t be guzzling five, six, eight, ten pints of beer. Go and have a coffee or a cup of tea. It’s not an alcoholics’ outing.”
He added: “What we’re asking for won’t affect profit. The bars can still sell their drinks and food. And yet government agencies in the UK and across Europe don’t take it seriously.”
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
