UK Airports Face Alcohol Sales Crackdown

Last month the new Aviation Minister, Lord Ahmad, announced plans to examine how alcohol is sold in airports across the country.

Current Law

The law currently forbids anyone being drunk on an aircraft, and figures from a Freedom of Information request showed that 442 people have been arrested in a two year period from March 2014 to March 2016.

New Aviation Minster Says

"If you're a young family travelling on a plane, you want to go from point A to B, you don't want to be disrupted. I don't think we want to kill merriment altogether, but I think it's important that passengers who board planes are also responsible and have a responsibility to other passengers, and that certainly should be the factor which we bear in mind. In terms of specific regulations of timings of outlets (which sell alcohol) and how they operate, clearly I want to have a look at that."

Is It Warranted?

In February, six British men on a stag party were arrested by German police after a mid-air brawl forced a Ryanair flight bound for Bratislava, Slovakia, to land in Berlin. In May, a woman punched an EasyJet pilot in the face, after she was ordered to the leave the plane. While these incidents are not the norm, we do seem to be hearing of more and more occurrences of drunk behaviour on planes, and so action is perhaps warranted to stop them escalating further. While lots of people enjoy a drink or two before getting on a plane, and some nervous flyers may indeed need one to help them cope, it should never get to the level where it results in violence against airline crew or other passengers, or impacts their holidays.

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