A scene probably familiar to many I'm sure,and unfortunately getting worse .
You have your little greek/spanish/ ground girl board your plane 5 mins before engine start, and you are told there are a group of guys who "maybe a leetle beet drunk" .
Its 5'oclock in the morning , you have 200 delayed tired pax and an A/C desperately needed back in the UK.(to keep your airline in business). .The seconds are ticking by,and you envisage a potentially violent scenario inflight.. . . .You KNOW the ground girl will say they have NOWHERE to put these guys if you offload them(and you will have explaining to do back at base):>>. . . .You also care v much about your airline,passengers and other crew members:>>
If you let these guys onboard you know its their word you will have to take that they will behave:>> But what if they DON'T??
Reluctantly, (to avoid further delay for the good of the airline)you let them on - they try and pretend to be sober/well behaved -but what about the next 4 hours at altitude when their drinks really start kicking in ??. . . . . .
You're either at the mercy of the onboard thugs/Captain/company/passengers or a combination of all - I used to fly charter 86-93 ,and maybe this seems familiar to some,I hope in these days of CRM,you get the full backing of the Flight crew and your company to assist in your difficult decision -do you dare delay the A/C further ?
As JMC were involved in this - have they introduced new onboard procedures to protect the cabin crew in certain situations with their dire reduced crew complements ? ? I truly hope so.