UK: Air passengers react to alcohol crackdown: 'Get as many in as you can'

Airlines earlier this month called time on irresponsible drinking after the BBC’s Panorama showed hair-raising footage of drunken debauchery at 35,000ft. Ryanair called on airports to limit alcohol sales to two drinks per person and ban drinking in terminals before 10am. It followed a similar move by rival Jet2, which last year stopped serving alcohol on early-morning flights. Ryanair’s tough stance came as figures showed a significant rise in arrests for alcohol-related unruliness in the air. Police made 387 arrests at airports and on planes last year, the BBC found, up from 255 in 2015-16. Meanwhile the Civil Aviation Authority reported a 600% increase in disruptive passenger incidents in the UK between 2012 and 2016, mostly alcohol-related. Beleaguered cabin crew members also voiced concerns, saying some flights to Ibiza, Alicante and Palma had turned into “nightclubs in the sky”. A survey by union Unite of more than 4,000 cabin crew workers found that 87% had witnessed drunken passengers. More than half said they had been verbally abused by inebriated passengers and more than a quarter said they had seen behaviour that threatened flight safety. Concerns were also raised this month over the sale of duty-free alcohol. Figures showed that more than half of all disturbances involved alcohol bought and brought on to planes before departure. A code of conduct introduced last year in an attempt to combat antisocial behaviour by passengers appears to be having little effect, according to Unite’s survey of cabin crew.<br/>