UK Air Navigation Order - drunkeness
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Pilots' Pal
Joined: Nov 1998
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From: USA
UK Air Navigation Order - drunkeness
The UK Air Navigation Order prohibits one from being drunk on board a UK-registered aircraft - fact. However, I often hear - and did today on BBC Radio 2 - that it is illegal to drink your own alcohol on board. Is it illegal or merely an airline condition of carriage? Is opening duty-free goods on board prohibited for Excise reasons?
Joined: May 2001
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From: Earth
The crew have a legal duty to prevent pax from boarding whilst intoxicated or from becoming drunk onboard. Monitoring alcohol consumption is the only way to prevent the latter, therefore it is a condition of carriage. It is not actually illegal to drink your own alcohol onboard, but breaks your condition of carriage if you refuse to stop drinking it when requested to do so by the crew. Crew have the right to remove alcohol from pax, provided it is on the understanding that it will be returned at the end of the flight.
Joined: Sep 2000
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From: The Valley Where the Thames Runs Softly
I am on the bench at a court that covers a large airport, and we see many of these cases. There is an anomaly in the ANO, in that Drunk on an Aircraft can only be dealt with by a £2000 fine at magistrates' court but is imprisonable at the Crown Court. In practice the CC almost always sentences well within magistrates' powers of six months. The real effect of this is that faced with the cost and uncertainty of a jury trial, the CPS will often drop the serious charges in return for a plea to the lesser ones. Hence serious air rage offences that would merit a shortish prison sentence as a warning to others finish up well down scale.
