UK: Rise In Alcohol-Fueled Air Traffic Misconduct Arrests
Arrests of passengers suspected of being alcohol inebriated at UK airports and on flights have risen by 50% in a year, a BBC Panorama investigation shows. According to British police data obtained by the BBC, 387 intoxicated people were arrested in U.K. airports between February 2016 and February 2017; the comparable figure for 2015-2016 was 255 arrests.
Additionally, a survey of 4,000 cabin crew by the Unite trade union found that 87% had witnessed alcohol inebriated passenger behaviour at UK airports or departing flights. One in five said that they had been assaulted by members of the public, while more than 50% reported that they had witnessed verbal, sexual or physical harassment.
Unite’s national officer for civil air transport, Oliver Richardson, said:
The abuse and disruptive behavior cabin crew have to contend with in doing their job and ensuring passenger safety would not be tolerated in any other industry or walk of life.
The industry and the Government need to recognize that the code of conduct must be given teeth, look at factors such as levels of alcohol consumption prior to flight departures, as well as tougher penalties for the perpetrators of such behavior.”
Calls for urgent action to prevent alcohol harm
Employees are calling for action
Employees are now calling for the UK government to get tougher on alcohol in airports, and to ban the consumption of alcohol purchased in duty free during flights.
A voluntary code of conduct on disruptive passengers was introduced during summer 2016, but it obviously has had little effect in curbing a growing problem. The voluntary code was agreed between the police, airlines, airports and airport retailers to “minimise disruptive passenger behavior”. And fewer than one in four UK cabin crew who were aware of the new rules said it had helped to reduce alcohol-fueled and disruptive behavior.
The code of conduct was introduced in 2016 in an attempt to combat anti-social behaviour by passengers, after the Civil Aviation Authority reported a 600% increase in disruptive passenger incidents in the UK between 2012 and 2016, mostly alcohol-related. Under the code, airlines, airport bars and retailers are not supposed to “encourage excessive alcohol consumption”.
One anonymous crew member told BBC Panorama:
The code of conduct isn’t working… we’re seeing these incidents on a daily, a weekly, a monthly basis. It’s the alcohol mainly in the duty free that is the significant problem.”
Airlines are calling for action
But with the code apparently having little effect, Ryanair urged airports to go further, demanding a ban on serving all alcohol in bars and restaurants before 10am, and ensuring boarding cards are produced for purchasing alcoholic drinks, which would be capped at two drinks per passenger.
Ryanair accused airports of profiting from allowing limitless alcohol use in terminals. The carrier’s marketing director, Kenny Jacobs, said:
It’s completely unfair that airports can profit from the unlimited sale of alcohol to passengers and leave the airlines to deal with the safety consequences.
This is a particular problem during flight delays when airports apply no limit to the sale of alcohol in airside bars and restaurants.
This is an issue which the airports must now address and we are calling for significant changes to prohibit the sale of alcohol at airports, particularly with early morning flights and when flights are delayed.”
Ryanair demands a two-drink limit before a flight and to ban alcohol sales before 10am.
But Ryanair also faces push-back as voices emerge claiming the airline’s cabin crew enthusiastically sell alcohol on board, leading to the accusation that Ryanair wishes to profit from their own demands.
Some airlines have also tried to warn passengers of the increased intoxicating effects of alcohol consumed in the air.
Dutch carrier KLM has published guidance warning passengers “you may seem more drunk in the air than you would on the ground after consuming the same amount of alcohol” because of the lower level of oxygen in the blood.
According to the U.K.’s Civil Aviation Authority, crew members have a right to divert a flight, make a drunk passenger leave an aircraft or refuse to carry intoxicated passengers “if a member of the crew deems their behavior disruptive”.
Trade body Airlines UK said it should be made illegal for people to drink their own alcohol on board a plane.
UK Government and Parliament mull policy action
The British government is considering stronger measures to deal with alcohol inebriated. In its draft aviation strategy published last month, the government said it would continue to work with the industry to consider other possible solutions – despite the apparent failure of the self-regulatory approach.
While the House of Lords, the upper chamber of parliament, is demanding a strengthening of the rules regulating alcohol sales at airports, parliament’s Home Affairs Committee has announced it is considering calls for tougher regulation. The House of Lords has also argued that airports should be bound by the same licensing laws as other bars and pubs across the country.
New proposals would restrict duty-free alcohol sales. Current legislation allows courts to jail nuisance passengers for up to two years.
