- Ryanair has renewed calls for an alcohol limit at airport bars because of a slew of incidents involving unruly passengers disrupting flights. A Ryanair flight last April was forced to land 1,400 miles from its destination.
Airline passengers need a refresh on in-flight etiquette, and Irish low-cost airline Ryanair believes alcohol is to blame. The carrier renewed its demands for a clampdown on airport drinking because it causes flight disruptions and is urging European authorities to set a two-drink limit at airports.
“We fail to understand why passengers at airports are not limited to 2 alcoholic drinks … as this would result in safer and better passenger behaviour on board aircraft, and a safer travel experience for passengers and crews all over Europe,” the company said in a statement.
Airlines, including Ryanair, already restrict in-flight alcohol, the carrier said, but passengers can still imbibe freely in airports, particularly during flight delays. The airline suggested alcohol limits are enforced through boarding pass scans and stamps, similar to how duty-free shops use them to verify international travel.
Unruly passengers have been a growing problem for airlines since the pandemic, as the number of flights have decreased, despite stable passenger demand. In 2023, there was one incident per every 480 flights. The year before, there was one incident every 568 flights, and per every 835 flights in 2021, according to the International Air Transport Association. The IATA used data from more than 24,500 incident reports across 50 operators.
In April 2024, a Ryanair flight was forced to land more than 1,400 miles away from its destination because of a disruptive passenger. The plane — leaving from Dublin and going to the Spanish island of Lanzarote — was diverted to Porto, Portugal. Passengers were delayed overnight, and Ryanair was forced to provide accommodation, pay compensation to passengers, and was charged unscheduled landing expenses. The carrier is seeking more than $15,000 in damages from the passenger.
Last call?
Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary has been calling for a two-drink limit since August, but not everyone is on board with his proposed reform.
O’Leary said flight disruptions are particularly an issue over the summer, with incidents happening once a week. Passengers on flights of “party destinations” like Ibiza and the Greek islands are especially boisterous. The airline resorted to searching pasengers for alcohol on UK flights to Ibiza after finding that some had filled water bottles with vodka, according to O’Leary.
Customers are sometimes imbibing booze with tablets and pills, escalating the risk of drinking beyond just passengers snoring on flights, O’Leary said.
“It’s the mix,” O’Leary told the Telegraph. “You get much more aggressive behaviour that becomes very difficult to manage. And it’s not directed just at the crew. Passengers fighting with each other is now a growing trend on board the aircraft.”
But Tim Martin, founder of pub chain JD Wetherspoon, which operates in several UK airports, wasn’t convinced airport drunkenness was as big an issue as O’Leary claimed.
“We’ve had no complaints about our pubs from the airport authorities or airlines that I’m aware of in recent years,” he told the Times in August.
Martin suggested Ryanair should alter its own alcohol policy instead. Wetherspoon previously banned strong drinks such as Jägerbombs—a cocktail of Jägermeister liquor mixed with an energy drink—from its airport menus. “Ryanair, in contrast, offers a discount on Irish whiskey if a double is ordered,” Martin said.
In response, O’Leary vowed to implement a two-drink limit on Ryanair flights if pubs committed to doing the same.
“They’re getting on board with too much alcohol in their system,” O’Leary told Sky News in September. “If we identify them as being drunk on board, we don’t serve them alcohol. But that doesn’t solve the problem.”
Ryanair and Wetherspoon did not respond to Fortune’s requests for comment.
