Minister vows to review alcohol sales at airports after incidents

Pledge after drunken airline passenger handed bill for £12,000

The way alcohol is sold at airports is to be examined amid a spate of incidents on planes involving drunk passengers, a minister said.

Lord Ahmad, aviation minister, pledged to consider what more can be done to make air travel an “attractive sector for all” which is “safe and secure”.

He made the comments as an airline handed a passenger a £12,000 bill and a lifetime ban after his “abusive and aggressive” behaviour led to a plane being diverted to Manchester.

Joshua Strickland, 21, of Tadcaster, North Yorkshire, “illicitly” drank alcohol he had brought on to the aircraft and threatened a family on board the July 13 flight from Leeds Bradford to Larnaca, Cyprus, budget carrier Jet2.com said.

The airline added that when a member of the cabin crew attempted to calm him down he made “physical threats towards her and also began to punch the seats”.

A spokesman for Greater Manchester Police said he was charged with acting in a way to endanger an aircraft or a person on that aircraft.

Figures obtained following freedom of information requests showed at least 442 people were held between March 2014 and March 2016.

A code of practice on disruptive passengers was published this week.

The appetite for foreign travel is as strong as ever but, across the UK, it is matched in some by the appetite for drinking vast amounts of alcohol as soon as they get within sight of an airport. The two habits are not necessarily compatible. More flights are being ruined by the drunken antics of passengers.

Most travellers will have experienced something within the range from the mildly irritating too-loud yob to the dangerously inebriated.

Staff and passengers are regularly abused and, in the confined space of a flight with nowhere to escape to, the interior of an aeroplane can become a very unpleasant place to be.

In the worst cases, flights have to be diverted for passengers to be expelled and airlines are becoming more adept at seeking recompense for the behaviour of the unruly few.

But it is hard to argue the case for a blanket ban on alcohol in and around airports, if such is being considered by aviation minister Lord Ahmad.

The ability to relax over a drink is often the first step in a good holiday.

For others, it is an essential component of getting through a flight.

A middle ground in which the inebriated, or those suspected of being on the brink of drunkenness, are refused boarding seems fair.

Andrew Tosh was sentenced to nine months in prison for a drunken sexual assault on a Thomas Cook flight from Glasgow to Dalaman, Turkey, top.