Easy Jet brawl diverts flight
 

Just heard that tonights MAN-MUC flight has diverted to Frankfurt after a drunken brawl with some of the punters on board. Lets hope the Germans sort them out:mad:

Well I can not comment on if it is true or not.

However such behaviour is sadly to be expected from time to time when cabin crew are under pressure to sell to passengers and having promotional deals on alcoholic drinks just exacerbates the problem. :ugh:

To blame cabin crew sales for this is outrageous. Much more likely they got on board well oiled up. Who was responsible for letting them on in that state is the question?

This was a regular occurrence over the summer with the late STN - IBZ. Let's be honest, it comes down to the quality of passengers that are carried and the fact that 9/10 times they were let on board already plastered...

.. but they pay the wages so apparently it's okay.

I never want to work an IBZ turn again. Great for the commission but that's about it.

EDIT - just read the above comments and yes, it usually comes down to the fact that they've been drinking the whole wait in the terminal and that they've smuggled their own alcohol on board and have been very successful in drinking it out of the C/C sight. Unfortunately OTP pressurises crew against offloading the passengers as the time taken for a bag search is unattractive to the company.

It's been illegal to carry an intoxicated person for as long as I can remember. It's strange how the industry has always plied their customers with liberal quantities of alcohol.

The thing about getting drunk is the feeling that 'It'll be okay to have another', once the first drink or two have been consumed. The only sure way to avoid situations like this is to have a maximum legal level of blood alcohol for passengers as well as aircrew. Somehow, I just don't see this happening.

Totally disagree. The only sure way is to:-

• jail these idiots
• ban them from ever boarding an aircraft again
• take away their passports

Problem solved.

So it's back to deterrent sentencing again is it? Better not get me going on that one.

100% correct.

The alternative being what? A nice little tap on the wrist and asking them very nicely not to do it again? :yuk::yuk::yuk:

The only way to get through to these louts is to slap them down hard. The namby-pamby liberal take on dealing with them is both unlikely to succeed, and inappropriate in this context.

The situation will only improve when airlines actually stick to their own rules regarding alcohol.

Well, that's a starting point.


The thing is, that one can instill fear into almost all reasonable people. After the first few drinks, people are no longer reasonable.

Again I totally disagree. Live in S E Asia where punishment does fit the crime and the same drunken louts soon learn to behave themselves.

Despite cheap booze, street crime is quite unusual, drunken acts on aircraft, again very rare. These same louts do come here too. Difference is, they KNOW their behaviour will NOT be tolerated. Step out of line and the will be slapped down hard.

McClaren found that out the hard way!!

These stories always amaze me. I fly quite lot andover the years have never run into such a situation. Are Canadians more civilized? First bar service I order two scotches, then another two. Then I can sleep for three thousand miles and turn a 9 hour flight into a 3 hour flight.

There is a lot of hypocrisy within the airlines about this. The remedy is simple and doesn't require costly legal intervention. They should adopt the same approach as football grounds and pubs, etc. Work collectively and ban them from all outlets. It would be a genuine deterrent if offenders were banned from all airlines.

I seem to remember some long necked lout who calls herself a super-model, being banned from BA. She was promptly feted by Virgin and welcomed with open arms.

I have very little sympathy for an industry which, for profit, compounds the problem. You allow them to board drunk, ply them with drink and fail to act firmly. I was recently on a Paris to EMA flight, where a passenger was told three times to pipe down before we even left the gate. Everyone knew he would a nightmare the whole flight, and he was. Why wasn't he disembarked? Because it costs money and that is more important.

It's not just about drink though.I had passengers fighting shortly after landing in Amsterdam some time ago.

All the people involved were women;there was a racial element, fists flew and throats were grabbed.Yes Cabin Crew were assaulted and we did eventually persuade the AMS police to press charges.

All this was 'kicked off' by a twenty something home counties girl who was seemingly calm during the flight.

She was certainly on something....but it wasn't alcohol.

Binder

"The joys of flying loco's !"

The only fight i've seen on a flight was when I was sat in BA's club world a few years ago!

Some crew rooms nowadays seem more like a statisticians office with individual sales targets and their associated performance on show for all to see. There is immense pressure placed upon cabin crew to generate on board revenue. The airline has crossed the line if they are arming their crew with cheaper promotional deals on alcohol. So whilst it is illegal for the airline's customers to be intoxicated on board the aircraft, they are willing to ply them with cheaper alcohol. :ugh:

Crew sell more than alcohol, and alcohol doesn't attract the best commissions in any case, so pressure to make on-board sales doesn't equate to pouring alcohol down passenger's throats! :rolleyes: As the crew are the ones who have to deal with the "problem drinkers", believe me they are well aware of the problems of serving too much alcohol and are usually the first to stop service. :hmm:

Actually the law sanctions boarding an aircraft while intoxicated, which may sound pedantic, but it means that (as in pubs and the like) the responsibility for serving the alcohol lies with the person serving it. It is also the reason why consuming your own alcohol on board is forbidden.

How about allowing sober pax to take the louts to court for compensation. Say £100 each plus hotel bill per passenger might be effective.

Let's say that an unruly drunken passenger has the same potential to cause major disruption on a flight as the pilot.

Let's say that in an intoxicated and uneducated (re. aircraft systems/flight safety) individual is more likely than the pilot to cause such disruption, given his inebriated state.

Why then should passengers not be held to the same standards of sobriety as the flight crew at boarding, or if that seems a stretch at least held to the standard of blood alcohol legal to drive?

Flag troublemakers at the gate and let them have a blow. Over the limit, no boarding.

Punishment is closing the barn door after the colt has bolted, what say keep the problem at the gate and let the ground staff/airport police handle it.

I believe that this problem doesn't exist at airlines such as Saudia Arabian, Royal Brunei, and Kuwait Airways, amongst others.

Maybe others could follow. I certainly wouldn't miss alcohol on board, I can't remember the last time I had alcohol on a flight even when it was free and plentiful.

EZY MAN-MUC Disruption
 

I have often seen that quoted but is it an individual airline edict or actually illegal? Genuine question because in my company I have not ever seen it written down anywhere.

It is obviously less of a problem as booze is not served on board.
I have seen "regulars" topping up in Heathrow before boarding and then with a bottle of spirits in their pocket are ready to enjoy the trip. To CC " six Cokes and lots of ice please".
The sound of empties rolling around on the floor on arrival is one of my earliest memories of trips to the Gulf.

I have also seen the police at the gate trying to decide if a mate can look after his friend and allow them to board.

One of the feared events on arrival in JED was the religious police tapping ankles of arriving passengers. Socks are an obvious hiding place for miniatures.

It's illegal to allow drunken passengers on board in the first place (at least in the U.S.), but since there is no enforcement of this regulation, there is no obedience to it. 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. They do exactly the same thing with safety regulations, unfortunately.

Airlines only obey laws when the penalty for disobedience is more expensive to the airline than the penalty for obedience. If the regulators actually start violating airlines for letting drunks on board, the number of drunks boarding airplanes will decrease very dramatically (in proportion to the fines assessed against the airlines by the regulators).

It's easy to prevent drunks from boarding: just issue a breathalyzer test to anyone who seems intoxicated and objects to being denied boarding. If it's above a certain level, deny boarding (zero tolerance would be better still, but that would never be accepted in a society where this type of drug abuse is so universally practiced).

Alcohol on board is also a problem, and the best way to deal with it would be to stop serving it, but again, as long as it's legal (or free of any penalty), airlines will do it. It's a lot easier to get drunk prior to a flight than during a flight, however, since the quantity of alcohol that can be consumed pre-flight is much greater.

I seem to recall that alcohol is a factor in at least half of all on-board incidents, but I can't find a reference right now, so I might be wrong on that. Another factor is that extremely low airfares have allowed increasingly immature and ill-behaved passengers to fly, although it's politically incorrect to make that observation.

MM - if it is not in your FCOs it should be in the c/crew SOP manual. Most EU airlines should have it somewhere, a typical wording being:

"No persons may be permitted to drink alcoholic beverage on board the aircraft unless
that beverage is served by the Cabin Crew for consumption at that time."

If you don't have it (I'm sure I had to find it once on a trip) you need to get it in place!

Lounge Lizards
 

a) reduce the silly 'just in case' time margin you nowadays have to build in to air travel: ......2.5hrs plus of hanging around dreaming of nicotine
b)don't have bars at airports beyond security

Try waiting at Luton for hours with the only entertainment being that ghastly pub in the corner.

When I'm waiting for hours at Luton, I'm sitting at the Starbucks, at the other end from that ghastly pub :rolleyes:

... I guess you and I'll never meet, then. :}

I am fairly sure that in the back of most carriers' in flight magazines there is something along the lines of this, from easyJet's website :

If those involved are forced to pay the costs of a diversion, then maybe that would sober them up.

tredwaezy:

I'm not having a go at you or your colleagues, but the comments above don't tie in with the flight having to be diverted - ie. it suggests that things may have settled down during the flight?

Things must have got quite bad for the flight to be diverted?

It's a pity that cabin crew and other passengers have to put up with the worst excesses of some passengers who feel they have to drink excessively and become a nuisance.

As I said earlier, not a pop at you or the crew (always been impressed with Easyjet crew), just curious as to what happened on board?

Ground staff are inevitably in a hurry to get the doors closed and are usually ready to look the other way and palm off an inebriated passenger as simply having had "one or two."

With the door open, the responsibility for organising the punters rests with the ground staff (at my outfit anyway).

Maybe if the gate staff had licences to risk, they'd be more responsible with regard to whom they allow onto the aircraft.

Yes, Manchester to Munich, that well known route for drunken holidaymakers. Before you start berating a service provider for the antics of its Neanderthal, knuckle dragging clientel, you might wish to examine the binge drinking, vomiting, assaulting and threatening behaviour of the entire UK first. Demonstrate that the nation does not have a propensity to act like this at any given opportunity, then you can slag off the carrier, but I suspect you will struggle to show this is anything but loutish Brits being loutish Brits - it's what we are famous for.

Easyjet is one of the most professional airlines out there and beats many legacy carriers hands down in terms of service. They were just the unfortunate airline of choice for these social pariahs.

Great, so yet again those of us who don't don't abuse 'the system' get penalised because of the idiots.

You may not miss alcohol and that is your choice but to be frank, I would.

It's bad enough being subjected to the bs of mindless and totally pointless security checks conducted by single brain cell organisms, even worse sharing cabin space with the dregs of humanity adorned with body piercings and more brandings than most cows, paying ridiculous environmental taxes that we all know will be spent on anything but the environment and now you're suggesting we do all this with nothing but luke warm coffee or bloody orange juice?

Sorry, but those G & Ts are the only port in what has become a horrendous (traveling) storm.

Quote:
They were just the usual friday night pax that were a little drunk and loud.

Well, that's allright then isn't it? :rolleyes:

The bus-service mentality rules. :ugh:

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.

What is the normal punishment for a crew attempting to board an a/c and operate being over the ludicrously low threshold? What is the normal punishment for an pissed pax convicted for endangering a flight and/or actual GBH? If the latter is lower than the former then something needs to be done about it.

Behind you 100% on that one. http://images.ibsrv.net/ibsrv/res/sr...ies/thumbs.gif

I like the occasional drink as much as the next guy, but an aeroplane is no place to do it to excess, and given that people seem unable to take responsibility for their own actions then maybe we need to do it for them.
After all, we can't smoke anymore, and if I can do without a cigarette from the moment I enter one terminal until I emerge at the taxi rank in a different country then I'm damn sure that people can do without alcohol for a few hours.

... But it'll never happen because drinks equals sales and the powers that be have evidently accepted the odd divert or arrest as a price worth paying for the extra revenue. :*

managers need to get the message that having pissed up idiots on board affects the other passengers. i dont think many would complain waiting a bit for some **** to be removed. They will however definately remember a 2-4 hours flight with someone on board who shows no regard for others around him. just think of a nice peaceful pub or one where it kicked off last time you were there.. where are you gonna go next time??

Much talk here implying this is something new! Charter flying in the early 1980s we used to have exactly the same challenge on flights such as UK to GRO or IBZ, especially the ones that left circa 2200.

These people should be denied boarding in the flight place if possible. Trouble is someone has to make a judgement as to whether someone is "drunk" or not. Ok there's the legal aspect but it's not always cut and dried. Will said passenger obey instructions from flight crew? Would this person impede exit in the event of an evacuation?

Our culture is much more alcohol orientated than it was. Should alcoholic beverages be served in the terminal buildings at all?

Have you been drinking!!