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We’ve all been there. There’s always that one person on your flight who can find fault with anything. They’re the ones who think that the cabin crew are glorified waiters and waitresses and think that they should come running when they click their fingers. Then there’s the ones that just have absolutely no respect for their crew or their fellow passengers.

What I want to talk about in this post though, is those passengers who cause so much disruption that the crew have no other option but to divert to have these people offloaded.

One of the worst causes for people to behave in this manner is alcohol and drugs. How many of you have been set for your holidays, at the gate ready to board your flight and then all you hear and see is rowdy, boisterous and drunken behaviour (and that’s at 7am). Yes we get that everyone wants to have a good time on holiday but does that involve being paralytic before boarding your aircraft.

Having worked in the aviation industry for many years I’ve seen a lot of things. One of the biggest things that are infuriating to deal with is people who have overdone it on the alcohol. We don’t enjoy refusing people travel but if we had to we would because at the end of the day we care about the crew and also about the other approx 150 passengers that are on the flight who shouldn’t have to deal with your behaviour.

Airlines themselves are now making a stand, which I think is fantastic. Leading the way for me is Jet2, who have a zero tolerance policy to anti social and drunken behaviour on their flights. It’s called the “OnBoard Together” policy. Jet2 launched this campaign in 2015 to raise awareness of the industry wide problem of disruptive passengers. Having seen this policy in action first hand there is absolutely no way to fault this airline on the stand they take regarding disruptive passengers.

Jet2 have absolutely no qualms in making decisions that will reduce aggressive and drunken behaviour on their aircraft to give all other passengers and enjoyable start and end to their holidays. The airline has handed out lifetime bans to disruptive passengers and also led them to start taking the passengers to court to recoup costs if a diversion to offload them has occurred.

In my opinion I think this is great as diverting costs airlines thousands of pounds in delay and fuel costs, not to mention the inconvenience to other passengers holidays. People have to realise that there are consequences to their actions and how they have to take responsibility for themselves.

I’ve seen so many videos of abusive passengers being filmed speaking to cabin crew in a horrendous manner; how they think that they are allowed to get away with that I will never understand. If you cannot handle your alcohol, it’s fairly simple. You don’t drink!