The number of passengers arrested for drunken behaviour on flights or at UK airports increased by 50% in the last year, new figures reveal.
There was a total of 387 arrests in the year to February 2017, up from 255 in the period from February 2015 to 2016, according to statistics obtained by BBC Panorama.
The figures were from responses from 18 out of 20 police forces with a major UK airport on their patch who were contacted by the programme.
(Andrew Matthews/EMPICS)
“I was pulled into an upper-class bed by a passenger who was feeling particularly lucky I guess.
“They would touch your breasts, or they’d touch your bum or your legs, or I mean I’ve had hands going up my skirt before. It’s rage inducing, and you shouldn’t have to deal with that.
“I guess I never reported it to the police because sadly, and this is completely wrong and only really occurring to me now, you kind of just accept it as part of the job. And it shouldn’t be.”
Another cabin crew member, who was unnamed in the programme, said airline workers had found “countless” litre bottles of vodka and they felt that Alicante, Ibiza, Palma were among the worst routes.
(Daniel Hambury/Empics)
Alexandra Wilms, of the Balearic Ministry of Tourism, called for “high fines” to try and deal with the problem as “these kinds of people don’t understand any other thing than really getting punished by paying a lot of money” while Airport Operators’ Association chief executive Karen Dee rejected suggestions airports are irresponsibly selling alcohol.
Ms Dee said: “The sale of alcohol per se is not a problem. It’s the misuse of it and drinking to excess and then behaving badly.”
Panorama also points out that the UK aviation industry brought in a voluntary code a year ago.
It recommends that airports and airlines should work together to limit disruptive behaviour and sell alcohol responsibly.
Most of the big airlines and airports have signed up to this.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel