Originally Posted by
Herod
It may have changed since my day, but it was often the case of the ground staff "kicking the can down the road" to the cabin crew. A moderately intoxicated person can stiffen up for the couple of minutes it takes to board, then the problem becomes one of crisis management.
Spot on, Herod. That was my experience too, no one wants a confrontation and the easiest wat to deal with these people is to pass them on down the line to become someone else's problem.
I do think the tone of this thread is some way off the mark with so much criticism of cabin crew when this incident started on the ramp before departure no one had been served drinks on board at this point.
In my time with EJ (london) cabi crew were pretty good at spotting potential problems and either flagging them up to me before deaprture which often resulted in offloads or refusing to serve them if they became inebriated en-route. I also knew several Captains who were more interested in getting home without delay and would decline to take more robust action on arrival which is of coursethe only way this problem will ever be put down. Prosecute every time and the message will get thrrough. Fortunately the courts seem to be on our side on this and have handed down some very satisfactory sentences.
The worst one I had was a bit like the Paris incident and the police had to use CS spray inside the aeroplane amongst pax, so violent was the miscreant. He got 6 months iirc.
By far the biggest problem was pax drinking their "duty free" on board surrepticiously, always spirits. The worst offenders were E Europeans who seem to monster whole bottles of Vodka as a natural part of a journey though any lads group (and some "ladies" groups too) has potential. The message did get through as EJ publicised some heavy UK prosecutions to both the UK and E European press and we did eventually see a reduction.
Crew need to be vigilant, formal complaints need to be made to airport authorities/bar staff or gate agents if pax are passed on in an unsuitable condition to fly and crew must always be prepared to offload even if it does mean missing a slot, or take the time to get police involved and press for a prosecution where appropriate. That requires the Capt and probably the No1 to know which buttons to push by being able to quote the ANO to the police (who won't know) explaining it is a criminal offence and asking for a prosecution. Cops like that because it hands them a result on a plate and the job gets done.