Should Airports And Airlines Do More To Restrict Alcohol Sales Woman Fined

[gordiescotland1]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-49017838
I totally accept that everyone must take responsibility for their actions however surely airlines should not allow people who are intoxicated to excess to fly. Also there is a lot of alcohol availabity at airports. Should the airports and airlines do more to prevent this.

[woofgang]

Its my understanding that people can already be barred from flying if they are considered too drunk or otherwise incapacitated.

[bobbs202]

Other than breathalyse every passenger gordies, I don't see what they can do unless you mean ban the sale of alcohol in airports ,they would lose millions by doing that and why should responsible people who may fancy a gin and tonic as part of their hard earned holiday suffer for the irresponsible ones?

[ummmm]

No....They are few and far between. Being in an airport doesn't suddenly make me want to drink so much I get on a flight drunk.

[ummmm]

They have got rid of the pre departures bar in Luton airport. Nothing to stop anyone buying their own though.

[Cloverjo]

Maybe they should restrict opening hours to a reasonable time for the country they’re in. My sister always posts on FB that she’s having a beer in the airport at 6 am or whenever. She doesn’t get on a plane drunk (as far as I know!) but there are lots who do.

[ludwig]

99.9% of passengers can have a drink and fly with no issues at all.

Potential air rage idiots take note - // Woman faces £85,000 bill //, and lifetime ban. Good.

[ummmm]

Jo - at 6am I would have been up since about 1am. I always get something to eat first though :-)

[ludwig]

Does anyone know whether the lifetime ban imposed just applies to that one airline or any others?

[237SJ]

^ Usually just the one airline. Lifetime doesn't necessarily mean lifetime though - it's usual to periodically review the ban and sometimes it is lifted

[youngmafbog]

The way to sort this is fines, invoices from the airlines (bailifs forcing their payment) and bans across all airlines.

Easily done but done anyone have the stomach to do it?

[naomi24]

When restrictions have been suggested before I’ve often thought the only way of ensuring that people don’t drink more than is acceptable is to add tear-off tokens to boarding passes. Boarding passes have to be shown when purchasing anything at an airport, so if bar staff tore off a token for each drink served the result would be no token, no drink, and hopefully no drunks!

[237SJ]

Not so easy with mobile boarding passes though, and most drunks get that way by consuming their own duy free

[237SJ]

'duty'

[naomi24]

Yes, mobile boarding passes would present a problem. Back to the drawing board.

[mallyh]

we had a very early flight but went to wetherspoons for breakfast and people were in there drinking pints with their breakfast .

[Cloverjo]

Perhaps someone could come up with software that notes every time you scan your boarding card on your phone to buy alcohol and refuses it when you reach the limit? My son is a software engineer. I’ll ask him about this next time I speak to him. I’m sure it’s possible. We could make millions out of this!

[woofgang]

When I used to travel regularly between my home in Somerset and Dubai, part of the fun of homecoming was to have beer or cider and a hot breakfast on the train, and a drink or two on the plane. Many people who are travelling aren’t operating on the timezone they are in and I don’t think that operating airport bars according to arbitrary sale times would do much to help......it might even make things worse, viz Australia’s famous five o’clock swill. I think the fact that this lady has made news demonstrates how unusual such a situation is.

[retrocop]

I reckon a lot of the problem is passengers tucking into their Duty Free Liquor mid flight. It is frowned on and discouraged by flight crew.
Any duty free purchased in the airport shop is sold on production of a boarding pass. The staff should take the money and have the purchases for certain flights placed in the luggage hold for collection the other side.That was done at Dover Ferry port for day return foot passengers. Purchase in Dover and you watched a tractor/tralier take all the booze into the ferry and it was taken out of territorial waters and returned to the passenger at Dover.

[naomi24]

Cloverjo, I want commission for coming up with the original idea!

[Prudie]

I've always thought that often when these passengers go really berserk it's not just alcohol but they've taken something else as well.
I know it seems shocking drinking first thing at an airport but I've done it myself - airports seem to block out real world time.