Fight against drunken guests Ryanair demands alcohol limit per passenger at airports
Europe's largest airline wants to restrict alcohol consumption at airports. Ryanair hopes that this will curb violence on board.
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- Only two alcoholic drinks per person should be allowed to be consumed at European airports.
- This is the demand of the Irish low-cost airline Ryanair.
- The measure is intended to reduce the number of incidents involving drunk passengers.
Ryanair, Europe's largest airline, has called for the sale of alcohol to be restricted at European airports. The aim is to minimize the disruption caused by drunk passengers on board.
Specifically, Ryanair is calling on the European Union to introduce an upper limit of two drinks per passenger at airports. "This is to be controlled through the use of boarding passes in exactly the same way they restrict duty-free sales," a spokesperson for the airline told "CNN".
"During flight delays, passengers consume excessive amounts of alcohol at airports with no restriction on purchase or consumption," the spokesperson is further quoted as saying. "We do not understand why passengers are not restricted to two alcoholic drinks at airports, as this would lead to safer and better passenger behavior on board aircraft."
Ryanair asks rowdy passenger to pay up
The Irish-based budget airline recently took legal action against a rowdy passenger who disrupted a flight from Dublin to Lanzarote in Spain in April last year.
Last week, the airline said it had claimed 15,000 euros (around 14,000 Swiss francs) in compensation from the passenger after the incident forced the flight to be diverted to Porto.
Violence on airplanes on the rise
The CEO of Ryanair, Michael O'Leary, has previously called for an upper limit of two drinks at airports. In August, he told the British newspaper "The Daily Telegraph" that he blamed drunken behavior for the increasing violence among passengers.
Passenger violence on airplanes has increased in recent years, according to data published by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) last year.
In 2023, there was one incident of disorderly passenger behavior for every 480 flights, compared to one incident on 568 flights in 2022. It is not known how many incidents involved alcohol.