Ryanair boss is completely fed up with incidents and wants a maximum of two glasses of alcohol per passenger on flights
Want to kick off your holiday with a celebratory drink? Or take the edge off your fear of flying? If it were up to Ryanair, drinkers would keep a low profile from now on. Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary is completely fed up with incidents involving drunk passengers and is calling for a new rule: a maximum of two drinks per passenger on board. But only under one important condition.
Ryanair has often experienced alcohol going completely wrong with passengers. Not so long ago, a Ryanair flight from Manchester to Ibiza even had to make an emergency landing in Toulouse because a drunk passenger couple decided to fight with staff and fellow passengers. We’re going to Ibiza… but with a black eye and a broken nose?! Bizarre.
Two drinks on board, binge-drinking at the airport
If he could, O’Leary would introduce the limit of two drinks per passenger on board as early as tomorrow. But only if that same limit also applied at airports. According to the Ryanair boss, that is where the problem lies. On his own flights, he can still control passengers’ alcohol intake simply by not serving them more. On the ground, he does not have that control. What use is an alcohol limit in the air if you can already drink yourself blind at the airport? Then you board as drunk as a lord and the damage has already been done.
O’Leary also thinks drunk passengers behave very differently now than they used to. According to him, this is due to the combination with drugs, which are becoming increasingly popular among passengers, especially on ‘party flights’ to destinations such as Ibiza. In the past, drunk passengers would fall asleep and you would not be bothered by them, O’Leary observes. Now you see uncontrollably aggressive behaviour much more often, with fighting passengers sometimes even flying through the air. Literally, yes.
Just don’t do it
You know, there are some things you simply should not do on board an airplane. Such as baking sourdough bread. Or—as Transavia would note—serving only vegetarian sausage rolls. Getting completely wasted on board is another no-go. Why would you?
It remains to be seen whether O’Leary’s limit will ever be introduced. The possibility certainly exists, but the boss does have a point. If you can simply keep drinking at the airport until you drop, a limit on board makes absolutely no sense. But how would you check at airports whether someone has had a maximum of two drinks? It cannot be done, especially at huge airports with dozens of places where you can order alcohol…
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