Easy Jet brawl diverts flight

[El Grifo]

Mass air travel has dropped below the standards of coach travel to a level somewhere akin to the transport of livestock.

It is simply ****.

What the hell do they expect if the cram shedloads of scroti onto sardine can like tubes and flog them premium lager till it coming out of their earholes.

I have seen some drops in standards in my time but none so radical as the standards in mass air travel

[Juud]

Originally Posted by AnthonyGA

Airlines follow the money, and if they know that regulations against drunken passengers are being ignored by enforcement authorities, and letting drunken passengers board increases revenue, they will board drunken passengers.

Painting with a broad brush there Mr GA, but sadly true for some airlines. Some airline management is like that and some groundstaff/cabin crew will let drunk people board because of it. Despicable, dangerous, uncomfortable for the other pax and frazzling for the crew. As you say, money talks for outfits like that, and yes, the regulatory bodies should do more.
Then again, regulatory bodies are notoriously understaffed, overworked and often have close ties to the operators. They also trust the operators to stick to the rules, and are often toothless when it comes to correction operators who flaunt the rules.
Drunk pax are pretty low on the list of things regulatory bodies should be stricter about.

Then there“s the airlines where management says and writes in their manuals that drunk pax are a no-no and should not be boarded. Airlines where management will back up a captain who takes a possible delay to off-load an intoxicated pap after the CC have brought the matter to his/her attention. Airlines where the captain rather than the time-table decides what happens.
I work for one of those, and I know for a fact that here in Europe, there are many others like it.

So lets look at what actually happens?
In the drive to lower costs (thank you MOL) check-in and gate staff have to be the cheapest possible. Temps with minimal training, handling agents who offer even less training so they can do it more cheaply, the youngest staff they can get their hands on because it is cheap.
The manual says no drunk pax.
Yet how reasonable is it to expect young, poorly trained people with little or no loyalty to the carrier, to confront drunk, often aggressive pax? Why would a 20 year old girl start a discussion with a massive, tattooed drunkard and his mates? She doesn“t have the skills and she doesn“t have the life experience to do that. What she does have is the reasonable fear of getting a barrage of verbal abuse or a fist in her face.
So she“ll check his passport and his boarding card and pretend that she doesn“t notice his condition.

So the drunk staggers up to the boarding door. There waits an FA or maybe 2. With a legacy carrier, more often than not there will be a CSD/Purser at the door. Who has been with the company for many years, views the job as a career rather than a chance to see the world cheaply, is paid a decent wage and has been selected and trained by the company to a standard that enables him/her to not only spot a drunk pax at 50 paces, but also to unobtrusively have a wee chat and ascertain exactly how drunk he is.
Who has enough experience to judge with a reasonable amount of certainty if this particular drunk will fall peacefully asleep or is capable of making and adhering to a “no-booze deal“ or will cause hell at flight level 320.
A battle ax who will sort the situation quickly and with a minimum of fuss. Ensuring an on time departure and a flight without drunken brawls.

To attract, select, train and motivate people like that costs money.
When cost saving becomes the only motivator for pax and therefore airline management, drunken brawls will become an even more frequent event.


There might be LoCos who stick to the no-drunks rule, but each of the 4 LoCos I have paxed on carried them without batting an eyelid. And there are for sure young untrained people with the guts and the skills to confront drunks, but they are the exception rather than the rule.

[juniour jetset]

It all come down to "those who can't regulate themselves need regulating" just like in the banking world, which every body had first hand knowledge of in recent... the problem is, building a framework of regulation that gains general acceptance and then enforcing that regulation each time, every time... the world is not a perfect place and never will be.. there will always be a few monkeys that fall out of trees!

If these laricans were not doing it with easily available booze, it would be some other kind of drug. I guess we just have to make it slightly harder for them each step of the evolution, but still be prepared for a few mishaps.

[STAN_37]

I'm disappointed that airlines aren't more robust about excessive drinking. Surely flying with intoxicated people on board compromises passenger safety and possibly that of the aircraft. Not hard to imagine that an emergency evacuation could get much more difficult with drunken pax. It would be sad if it takes a mention in an AIB report to change things.

Having no air side sales of bottled alcohol might help. The 'duty free' stuff never was a bargain.

No easy answers.

STAN37

[Matoki]

If airlines let one another know of problem passengers and gave a blanket ban so that no airline would carry them, those who want to cause trouble would find that getting home from distant places eg., Ibiza, Cyprus, Barcelona etc.,by coach ,train and ferry is both time consuming and expensive, plus make sure they would'nt be flying abroad again for say the next ten years. With the computer age it must be possible to have a list of people not wanted on aircraft (Including charter flights), just like the list of people not wanted at foreign football matches. There would still be a few stupid people , but long term even the idiot might think twice.

[ZFT]

Capetonian

I knew when I posted this that someone would come up with this response, and I sympathise. In an ideal world we would not need police, speed limits, security checks, anti-virus scanners, and everything else.

Sadly the society we live in has moved away from punishing offenders to the extent that, as you say, those of us who don't don't abuse 'the system' get penalised because of the idiots. Grossly unfair, but that's the way our so called 'civilised' society has evolved. I'm all for throwing these thugs out at 39,000 feet, but we all know that won't happen, so banning alcohol is a step towards maintaining a safer environment for the majority because of the actions of the minority.

Should we need to do it? No
Do we need to do it? Sadly I fear the answer is yes.

So the next step is to ban cars because some people speed, ban home computers because some people send viruses? Why not ban football matches whilst you're at it. No more football hooligans. This world just cannot carry on globally banning 'things' because of the actions of a minority.

I've stated it before and I'll restate it again, hooliganism, vandalism and the like don't exist within societies where there is (sensible) punishment.

If we stopped pampering to the civil rights of the louts this problem will go away.

Of course I'm realistic enough to know this will never happen. Air travel will get worse, most likely the wonderful EU or the USA at some stage will ban alcohol from their airspace ą la tobacco and game over. Another 'victory' for the loonies.

Fortunately for me only 25 months, 3 weeks and 2 days until I'm put out to pasture. Then it's trains and boats, G & Ts and (hopefully) civilised fellow passengers.

[Xeque]

Capetonian and ZFT

Have to agree with you both and anyone else in this thread who has spoken along similar lines.
On the night of November 5 in Bodmin, Cornwall there occurred a dreadful incident involving louts with fireworks and the bullying of a lad with learning difficulties that resulted in the death of his mother and severe damage to their home.
Once upon a time the constable on the beat delivered a swift clout round the ear to kids who misbehaved in public. No more! The 'namby-pamby, do-gooder politically correct' brigade have put an end to all that.
The result is incidents like the Easy Jet perpetrated by (supposed) 'adults' who, as children have grown up in an environment that allows them to get away with anything.

[Seat62K]

I recently saw a Ryanair cabin crew member remove an open can of lager from a passenger before take off (on a Spanish domestic flight); I wonder whether Ryanair's approach to drunk passengers is such that it would treat any situation differently to easyJet? For example, it's only on Ryanair that I have seen the safety briefing paused to allow cabin crew to tell a passenger to pay attention!

(By the way, the passenger I refer to wasn't drunk or aggressive in his response. I mention it only because I was impressed by the attendant's enforcement of the rule that only alcohol bought onboard can be consumed.)

[A and C]

The making of trouble?

First I have to say that no airline that I have worked for has failed to back me 100% when dealing with unruley pax and before the anti-RYR lot get going I was subbing for RYR and they backed me 100% too.

The reason for 50% of the trouble is that a lot more pax are frightend of flying than will admit it, add to this endless lines for check in & (so called) security and up will go the stress level. The final part of the jigsaw is a delay, they now can't smoke in the terminal so they turn to drink.

Stress, delay, drink & no smoking = trouble from people who would normaly be quite calm.

I am very anti smoking but I think that 50% of the trouble could be avoided by providing a smoking area in the gate area of the terminal, just a cage on the roof will do. After all these people are adicted to a leagal drug that the goverment makes a vast profit on, the least we can do is to let them have a puff before getting on what most of them think of as an death trap.

Unfortunatly the other 50% of trouble we will just have to deal with!

[lowcostdolly]

Drunkeness on an aircraft

Checkboard....I'm afraid you are incorrect. UK law does not sanction boarding an aircraft whilst drunk.

Disruptive pax are prosecuted under one of the 6 offences created by the Air navigation Order 2005:

Article 75 - Drunkeness in aircraft.... A person shall not enter any aircraft when drunk or be drunk in any aircraft.

Couldn't be clearer really and is the direct quote. I'm afraid and I know this is going to be controversial amoungst my colleagues but the responsibility of allowing these morons to board this flight (Gusting 45's question) lies squarely in 2 camps.....the ground staff and the CC. There are no excuses for preventing this....it's our job!!

SLF are generally not even aware of the ANO's but everyone involved with the dispatch of the pax is..... or should be.

Trewaezy has identified these SLF as the usual friday night pax...."drunk and loud". If they were identified as drunk by the CC on boarding to the extent they rightly sold them no alchohol for the flight duration then why were they allowed to travel? The Man-MUN route has a particular pax profile and just like in any airline you can predict what may kick off on a particular flight. The night IBZ's or RHO also spring to mind It is also well known that these pax frequently consume their own alchohol as identified here. We have the power to confiscate this but it wasn't done?

This also begs the question then as to what the ground staff did to liase with the CC on boarding re the state of these pax? If there was no info forthcoming from the dispatcher initially then why? did they just want to get rid of them?

Touch wood, I have never had a drunken incident on board because if the ground staff flag up problem pax at ground level that is exactly where they stay......why would we want to have to control these idiots at 35,000 feet? The flight crew have never disagreed and the few minutes it takes to find the bag is considered well spent. Pro active ground staff have usually located the bag anyway. I would probably be the "battle axe" reffered to by another poster but they would not board and disrupt a flight for the majority of civillised and law abiding pax on board.

I've absolutely no doubt the onboard incident was dealt with to the best of everyone's ability. I'm not sitting in judgement as I wasn't there but I wonder how things could have got to that point which is why I've asked some pertinent questions.

You don't have to ban alchohol on flights and when I travel as SLF I rather like my G&T's in moderation!! You just have to proactively manage the situations which may occur. IMHO as the "battle axe" at the door

[Mr A Tis]

According to one of the sober pax on this flight, this group were well sozzled before boarding, they were also drinking on board too-whether from the on board bar or from their own supplies is unclear.
Clearly some lessons to be learned here by all those involved.
I had planned to use this service later in the year, but I think I will stick with Lufthansa, costs more- but its worth it IMHO.

[IJM]

A couple of posters have mentioned MAN - MUC as having a particular pax profile - I'm curious - is MUC a popular stag do location? Oktoberfest is finished now as far as I know.

Have travelled 3 or 4 times LON - MUC and they have been fairly sedate flights!

[Final 3 Greens]

It's quite simple.

Being drunk on an aircraft is an offence, prosecute the offenders.

Then investigate how they were on the aircraft, drunk.

If the gate staff let them through, drunk, pull their airside passes.

If the CC let them on drunk or they became drunk in the air, pull the #1's (for not controlling the cabin) and the captain's airside passes, as s/he has ultimate accountability for the conduct of the flight.

Of course, if the pax drank their own duty free and refused to hand it over, then no punishment for the CC and extra punishment for the drunken pax.

If drastic action was take, word would soon get around and this behaviour would be stamped out.

[ZFT]

Final 3 Greens

Please don't suggest that. Someone might take it up.

Just go after the unruly passengers. Why penalize the crew?

[SpannerInTheWerks]

The trouble is these passengers are passed down the line like a game of 'pass the parcel'.

Check-in clerk - are you drunk? 'No, I'm fine'

so on to Dispatcher

'No, I'm fine'

Further enquiry, Dispatcher askes Cabin Crew 'what do you think?'

Time goes on, bags loaded.

Cabin crew may ask Flight Deck.

Has s/he got bags - 'Yes'

Captain, well if we have to unload him/her now we'll miss the slot.

Passenger boards.

On one flight a few years ago one such passenger was boarded at Luton. Full aircraft with 148 pax bound for England match in Amsterdam.

Said passenger became abusive and did not remain seated after cabin secure.

We decided to turn back after lining up when cabin crew told us passenger was in a fight with another pax.

Slot missed, match missed, one pax off-loaded (nutter - it took 4 policemen), 147 other angry to deal with now!

Where do you draw the line and hindsight is a great thing.

No one wants to take responsibility and 'deal' with the problem. The buzz word is 'ownership' of the problem.

Can't blame the staff/employees all the time - they are human. Maybe management should interface with passengers more often and see the 'tolerant' approach for themselves - take ownership.

[tredwaezy]

Reason for divert

We ended up diverting becuase the group of 10 decided to pick on a group on 3 but one of them thought it would be a good idea to go over a punch 1 of the 3 then the 3 tried to sticking up for themselves. Came from nothing and quite suprising really. But been the only lad of 4 crew and the girls been all up to a size 10 i was glad i was there. I think the whole debarcle came from 1 of the 3 wearing a pink jumper and talking to me in the forward galley. Therefore he was gay and i was already presumed gay for the job i was doing. All i want to know is why they think it is acceptable to drink there own booze, be loud and swear?!? It would be a public order offence on the ground.

[Final 3 Greens]

Why penalize the crew?

My suggestion is aligned with the potential penalty for retailers who sell alcohol unlawfully, under English law.

From a logical point of view, it seems appropriate that those who allow drunks on to aircraft or allow them to become drunk on aircraft, should face a similar penalty.

Not forgetting that the drunks should be punished to the full force of the law.

[IJM]

tredwaezy - thanks for coming back with more info on this one, I don't envy cabin crew and passengers who have to put up with idiots like the ones on your flight.

So does MAN - MUC have more than its fair share of "nuisance passengers"?
Was it a stag party involved on your flight?

I ask through curiousity, as I thought stag dos / groups of beered-up lads tended to go for the Eastern European capitals, Amsterdam etc. Or was there a football match involved?

[polkadotwellies]

Grifo said:

Mass air travel has dropped below the standards of coach travel to a level somewhere akin to the transport of livestock.

In the Uk it is illegal to consume alcohol on a Public Service Vehicle (Bus/Coach/Minibus) and there is a maximum fine of £1000 if convicted.

[Mr A Tis]

Lufthansa have flown MAN-MUC 3 x a day for years.( without trouble)
This is EZYs first week of operation on the route.