It is becoming a nightmare for the CEO of Ryanair Michael O’Leary who has recently started lobbying the British government to curb airport drinking because of the mounting problems caused by drunk passengers on flights to destinations like the Balearics.
The perfect example is a recent Ryanair flight from Liverpool to Ibiza which turned into a flying party. Passengers decided to start the fun before arriving on the island: they got out of their seats to dance and drink in the aisle, creating a festive atmosphere. The most curious thing about the flight was a little boy who, in the middle of all the commotion, sat quietly reading a book. While everyone was dancing, the boy was concentrating on his reading.
Hence why, after calling for airports to impose a two alcoholic drinks limit on passengers before boarding, Michael O’Leary has now said that he would support a similar restriction once they are on the plane.In August, O’Leary told The Telegraph that alcohol was, along with illegal drugs, a factor in the “misbehaviour” of some passengers: “Most of our passengers show up an hour before departure. That’s sufficient for two drinks. But if your flight is delayed by two or three hours, you can’t be guzzling five, six, eight, ten pints of beer. Go and have a coffee or a cup of tea. It’s not an alcoholics’ outing.”
But it appears that O’Leary is in favour of also cracking down on how much alcohol passengers can consume when they’re on the plane. He told Sky News last week: “If the price of putting a drink limit on the airport, where the problem is being created, is putting a drink limit on board the aircraft, we’ve no problem with that.”
“They’re (passengers are) getting on board with too much alcohol in their system. If we identify them as being drunk on board, we don’t serve them alcohol. But that doesn’t solve the problem,” he added. As for when he would be ready to bring in the new policy, O’Leary, who has been Ryanair CEO for 30 years, claimed that he would be “happy to do it tomorrow”.
