Originally Posted by Perkin
I'm actually surprised this behaviour didnt result in a visit and some stern words from the captain, with threat of restraint or divert & offload to local police...It seems a bit weak of the crew not to act in my opinion...The authorities would almost certainly intervene on the ground, had this happened in a restaurant or other public place, so why not in the air?
Perkin I would suggest its actually rare that any member of the flight crew would leave the flight deck to deal with this kind of situation, purely because with violence taking place in the cabin you don't want the flight deck door being opened - who knows what it could escalate to from there. You also don't want a member of the flight crew being injured (if it got to that level), especially on a 2 pilot crew.
As far as "the authorities" go, the Captain has legal authority in the air and passes that on to the cabin crew inflight as and when required. Cabin Crew restraining a passenger counts as arrest, and once the captain has given permission for the crew to do so then the person has been arrested as if they were on the ground.
The question of why this crew didnt intervene is an interesting one. There is a
parallel thread running in the Cabin Crew forums which is good reading, with cultural/training issues being raised (this was an EK flight).
Its also important to remember that no one here, including Tezza, is actually aware of what discussion took place amongst the cabin crew regarding this incident.