The decision comes because the airline sues a passenger for €15,000 after they precipitated a flight to be diverted.
Ryanair is demanding that passengers be stopped from consuming an excessive amount of earlier than boarding flights.
The finances airline believes it could assist with the rising drawback of disruptive behaviour onboard its flights.
“It’s time that EU authorities take motion to restrict the sale of alcohol at airports,” the Irish airline stated in an announcement.
“We fail to grasp why passengers at airports will not be restricted to 2 alcoholic drinks (utilizing their boarding move in precisely the identical manner they restrict duty-free gross sales), as this is able to end in safer and higher passenger behaviour on board plane, and a safer journey expertise for passengers and crews throughout Europe.”
The demand comes as Ryanair is suing a passenger for €15,000 after their behaviour precipitated a flight to be diverted in April 2024.
The finances airline alleges that this passenger’s “inexcusable behaviour” on a flight from Dublin to Lanzarote was so disruptive that it pressured the plane to divert to Porto, Portugal for security – the place they needed to pay for crew members and over 160 different passengers to remain in a single day.
Alcohol is already restricted on flights
Ryanair identified that it and different airways already restrict alcohol gross sales in-flight – however stated that passengers can nonetheless eat extra alcohol at airports earlier than boarding, significantly throughout flight delays, with out related restrictions.
Aviation businesses have lengthy expressed concern with disruptive, in-flight incidents – significantly those who end in violence in opposition to others on board, verbal abuse, harassment or different well being hazards like smoking.
What’s the monetary price of diverting a airplane?
Ryanair has launched particulars of the prices incurred after a disruptive passenger precipitated a flight to be diverted in April 2024.
Greater than 160 passengers and 6 crew have been pressured to remain in a single day at Porto airport earlier than flying onwards to Lanzarote on the next day.
The airline additionally had to offer an extra plane and crew to function the delayed return flight from Lanzarote to Dublin.
The best price of €7,000 was to offer in a single day lodging and meals to passengers and crew along with €2,500 airport touchdown and dealing with charges, €1,800 in alternative crew prices €2,500 in Portuguese authorized charges, €800 in extra gas and €750 in misplaced in-flight gross sales.
Disruptive behaviour on flights is growing
Though nonetheless uncommon, experiences of unruly passengers on planes have not too long ago been on the rise.
The European Union Aviation Security Company notes that, whereas the company couldn’t present specifics, “each the quantity and severity of incidents” have elevated in Europe since 2020.
Worldwide, the Worldwide Air Transport Affiliation discovered that there was one disruptive incident for each 480 flights in 2023, primarily based on information from extra 24,500 experiences and 50 operators worldwide. That is up from one each 568 in 2022.
What number of of these incidents concerned alcohol was not instantly identified. However, amongst efforts geared toward stopping in-flight disruptive habits general, the IATA and different aviation teams have beforehand underlined the significance of serving alcohol responsibly, not permitting vacationers who’re too intoxicated to board and taking part in extra security initiatives, like ‘One Too Many’ within the UK.
In the meantime, within the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration reported that it acquired 2,102 experiences of unruly passenger incidents final yr, leading to $7.5 million (€7.3 million) in fines levied. That incident depend is up 1 per cent from 2023, however nonetheless far beneath a 2021 peak of 5,973.