ON Sunday afternoon I set out on a Ryanair flight from Prestwick to Dublin. The vast majority of my fellow passengers were dressed in green and white; it would have been obvious to even Inspector Clouseau that (a) they were Celtic supporters and (b) many of them had been celebrating the League Championship victory for every one of the past 24 hours.

It should be stressed that no-one among this merry band was creating any serious bother. They made it

up the steps of the plane without

too much difficulty, though a couple of their number appeared to be walking by remote control. Once seated, they sang.

The Fields of Athenry took a fair belting and it was followed by the usual repertoire, including that they did not care what certain other clubs said, they were the championes (sic). In the middle of this choral per-

formance two stewardesses went through the safety drill, totally drowned out by the music.

It was clear to me that, come any requirement to put on a life jacket or operate a mask, we could have a few problems. Still, it was a short flight and the crew were probably quite right just to humour them and hope all went smoothly.

After we took off, singing on our way to the skies, the stewardesses then took what I considered to be a very stupid step - they offered more drink. Not content with that, the fans were next given the chance to buy duty free goods.

Now I had just read, as I am sure that you did, that airlines were cracking down on drunken passengers. Those who caused trouble on flights, having had too much firewater,

were likely to face jail terms of up

to two years, plus a worldwide ban. Why then, I wondered, were people who were obviously not going to beat any breathalyser, being plied with more drink?

I do not wish to single out

Ryanair, which I have found to be

a very enterprising outfit. It has brought welcome competition on UK-Irish routes which, as previously operated by Aer Lingus, were extremely costly.

All airlines follow the same policy of supplying strong drink to passengers while being perfectly well

aware that, at altitude, this can have a much greater effect than when taken on the ground.

My wife and I flew with British

Airways to Boston at the start of our holiday a couple of years ago. Up front was an Edinburgh rugby team who demolished the plane's entire beer stock by the time we were two hours into the air. Like the Celtic party, they were perfectly friendly - at this stage - though I would not particularly have wished to share their company for another stage of the journey.

The rugby players did not wait until the stewardesses came around with the drinks trolley. They simply helped themselves from supplies

at the rear of the economy section. No-one from the crew gave them a second glance.

Now I am neither a teetotaller nor a believer in alcohol prohibition in the air. Indeed, as a non-smoker and an asthmatic, I have no problem with allowing passengers to have the odd puff on longer flights, provided they can be properly segregated. It does seem odd to sell customers cigarettes, then prohibit them from smoking the goods.

But I do believe airlines must put their own cabins in order unless they wish to invite a lot more trouble from unruly passengers. That ought to mean a strict limit on the number of drinks that will be supplied and the use of common sense when serving those who, for instance, have been subjected to long delays and are more likely to have propped up the bar for several hours.

And I pose this question. If, as they all tell us, our safety is paramount, why does every airline in the world carry large stocks of alcohol - a highly inflammable liquid - to flog as duty free goods? There is at the moment a high-powered campaign to protect the duty free industry from threats by the European Union which wishes to equalise duty throughout the community.

We are invited to sign petitions urging our Government to reconsider any such move and are told that ''thousands of jobs are at risk''. And, it is rarely pointed out, ''millions of pounds in profits''.

Duty free is, in fact, nothing of

the sort, it is duty limited and it includes a whopping margin which goes directly to the seller. As far as booze goes, the bargains are more imagined than real.

My local off-licence is currently selling a proprietary brand of whisky at just over #9. You could purchase a litre of the same at most duty shops for that price. Is it, though, such a snip to lug the litre all the way home in order to save a couple of quid?

Yet we are told that duty free is all part of the fun of travel. So passengers place bundles of bottles into the overhead rack which, if they fell on anyone, would put them into la-la land for a considerable period.

Would it not be cheaper, and certainly safer, if we simply accepted that equalised duty throughout the EU would be considerably fairer?

Airlines' attitude to drinking is rather like governments' attitudes to smoking. The activity is frowned upon, the revenue is welcomed.

That smacks of hypocrisy to me.