Aeroplane passengers should be restricted to two drinks at airports, Ryanair chief executive Michael O’Leary has said.
Mr O’Leary said introducing alcohol limits at airports would help tackle a rise in disorder on flights.
Violent outbursts are occurring weekly due to alcohol, he said, especially when it is mixed with other substances.
“We don’t want to begrudge people having a drink,” he told the Daily Telegraph.
“But we don’t allow people to drink-drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000ft.”
“But we don’t allow people to drink-drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000ft.”
I didn’t realise you had to fly the plane yourself on Ryanair now. That’s one way to cut costs I guess…
That is uncomprehendingly stupid
Found the drink addicted brit in the comments
The pilots can come under the influence of a good time
You say this, but have you ever tried to drive a car (sober) that is packed full of drunk people? It’s not easy, and they all might just get you pulled over anyway.
If they have a divider like the pilot does, then that’s kinda like driving a limo.
People are angry because of how absolutely shitty and evil ryan air is when they are abusing and stressing up their passengers with all their bullshit.
Otherwise airports are super calm (in the EU anyways).
Not in the US. I’d be fine with it but I don’t know how they’d enforce it. Most of the rowdy people would just get their friends to buy them drinks, or hop from bar to bar at the airport. I doubt they’d make people take a breathalyzer before serving them.
In EU they will not sell you almost anything already if you don’t show your boarding pass. It is very easy to keep a drink counter per passenger.
Where? I have never experienced this before.
Schiphol in the Netherlands, Milan and Rome in Italy, also in some airport in London as I recall.
But thinking about it, some things like food and water at the food court I might have never been asked.
Oh well.
I don’t think I’ve ever experienced this while flying in the EU, and I’ve done my fair share of it, living here and all.
You only have to show your boarding pass for the tax breaks that come with traveling internationally.
Neither but here while there isn’t a ‘limit’ the flights only stock a set amount and flight crew can cut you off when they think you’ve had enough. I don’t think they give a shit if people manage to get drunk. I think largely the point is not having visibly drunk/disruptive people on planes or in airports. Which I kinda can understand.
Considering how shitty flying economy is in general, it seems like a 2 drink minimum is need to even tolerate it.
I always load up on weed edibles.
Ryan Air: No, it’s the airports that are wrong.
“But we don’t allow people to drink-drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000ft.”
Aaah, so the problem is drunk pilots. I can get behind a two-drink maximum for flying a plane. Although, in “Flight” the guy flew a plane upside down hammered…so maybe it should be a two-drink minimum to get maximum innovation.
ETA: I prob should have added /s
The false equivalence in the article is frustrating. We don’t allow people to drink and drive, but we do allow people to drink and ride. Contextually, I think the article is referring to drunk passengers being unruly, not pilots. If they are actually talking about pilots then it should be a 0 drink limit before a flight. Just punish the disorderly drunks, and let the rest of the adults, adult.
Pilots already are forbidden from drinking before flights. I seem to recall a very strict policy about not drinking for at least 24 hours before a flight.
Generally there are no pilots who drink before a flight. All airline carry out spot tests, and pilots who fail will at the very least be suspended. Many airline have a zero tolerance policy, and will kick a pilot out if they test positive. Too high a risk for most pilots
That’s their point, no drunk drivers in the issue, so why was he discussing them?
If he wants us to start arresting sober drivers for driving drunk people home, that’s another topic he should address separately.
Don’t think he’s going to get very far with that one, as if you made such a law, you would discourage people from driving intoxicated people home, thereby increasing drunk drivers on the road, and putting more people at risk.
Lol, maybe if conditions didn’t get so shit in airports, fewer would crack
Let’s be honest. Any social norms about when drinking is socially acceptable go out the window at airports. It’s been that way as long as I can remember. But Ryan Air/Spirit/frontier passengers all kind of self select for having a miserable experience so I don’t blame them for trying to numb the pain.
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Ryanair boss prolly uses private jet with open bar and skips the lines at the airport
I never really understood why bars are so popular in airports.
Why anyone would want to get heavily drunk before flying is beyond me.
I can maybe see this being a thing way back during the prop days when engines were ridiculously loud and travel was very tiring, but those days have been long.
If you’re really that bored even with access to modern technology, you’re probably better off taking a sleeping pill.
Airport bars are crazy expensive too
I think drinking at airport bars can be fun. Everyone is on their way to somewhere else, no one is driving, so it can be really fun and chummy. Been drinking at an airport bar where a guy was buying everyone free rounds until the first person left for a flight. Pretty hilarious when a whole bar loudly booed a guy hustling off to his flight. 🤣
Yeah, I used to drink a lot but getting loaded before a flight just makes the whole ordeal so much less tolerable.
Yup. Getting drunk ON a plane is great. Getting drunk BEFORE a plane is no bueno.
As with any drinking occasion the trick is to hot that goldilocks zone where you are just drunk enough to enjoy yourself and then fall asleep in a few hours, but not so drunk you become belligerent and wake up feeling like shit
This is the take i understand the least that I’ve seen on Lemmy, airport bars are amongst the funnest places to drink, folks are either in vacation or work trip mode so for the most part everyone is loose and chill, nobody has to drive after, and as soon as I board and get to my seat I can instantly take a nap. I love an airport bar and I’ve had a bunch of really fun chats in them when I used to travel for work constantly
Me and my buddies were flying for vacation and we were in an airport that does that already. Somewhere in the southwest. So you just go to different airport bars every two drinks. Bar hopping isn’t that brazen a concept.
Unless they start tying your purchases to your plane ticket, this just seems like it will create more mobile drunks. It would be nice if they actually enforced policies against people too drunk being allowed to board a plane. I’ve seen people that were very visibly drunk and loud walk right on.
I guess telling a super drunk person they can’t board is more likely to instigate an scene than just waving them onboard and hoping they pass out. Aside from being annoyingly loud and drunk, I was only ever on one flight where someone became a problem, and basically they got into a drunken yelling match with someone next to them.
They got moved to a seat in the back and told if they didn’t calm down for the rest of the flight, the police would be waiting for him. He grumbled about it and passed out.
Yes, but its easier to deal with them on the ground than on the plane.
I get that Lemmy’s kneejerk reaction is naturally that the big corporation’s CEO is wrong and evil (he IS an asshole, at least), but drunk passengers on planes is an actual issue.
I have a couple of close relatives who’ve worked as air hostesses for Ryanair for years, and they mostly like the job except for summer flights from a specific European island country in which there’s a big tradition of drinking a lot and big groups of men doing “guy trips” to my country either for specific football games or for the beaches. These usually involve an almost permanent state of drunkenness, getting into fights with locals, trashing places.
O’Leary’s claim about inebriated people being hard to identify is partly bullshit from what my relatives tell me - they say that even when they can notice these groups are already drunk when boarding, Ryanair’s staff isn’t really comfortable policy wise in preventing them from boarding. Plane staff may refuse them alcohol on board but by then they’re usually already in a state of general lack of control. I assume the company doesn’t want to strenghten boarding rules in order not to lose these groups as customers, and staff gets shafted in the process. But these people shouldn’t be getting this drunk on a plane (or in general).
So maybe should just get comfortable policy-wise with turning away passengers fucked in passengers at the gate.
A two drink maximum doesn’t stop me from snorting a fistful of ket in the cab, getting 1-2 drinks after security, then going ballistic during the flight. Getting turned away at the gate because I’m obviously kholed does stop me though.
The thing that works the best might cost Ryanair some money though, and we obviously can’t have that, won’t someone please think of the profits?
Maybe you’re right. But hand waving the problem away with a knee jerk comment about how this is just a greedy CEO making up a problem that doesn’t actually exist doesn’t really add much to the discussion, and that was what my comment was addressing - the many comments pretending people flying drunk isn’t an actual issue but instead an excuse to justify Ryanair’s other shenanigans.
What’s the surcharge he’s got in mind for this idea?
Mandatory breath tests at the gate with additional fees to pay for every 0.01% over a certain limit (but if you pay up front you can get as pissed as you like)
People are shit at flying period. You should have to pass a test before being sold an airline ticket. Nothing fancy. Just the basic do’s and don’ts of flying. Perhaps a psychological test for good measure and no skin walkers.
Do line up window middle isle front to back.
Don’t dick about in the aisle
Do sit down and stay seated
Don’t recline seat ever. You’re just fucking up the person behind you
Do leave both middle arm rests free for the poor bastard sitting there
Don’t leave the window shade open if the sun’s beating in.
No reclining? Fuck that shit-- most of my flights are long as hell and I’m not sitting ramrod straight for 14 hours. I can barely sleep as it is and those extra few degrees of tilt (plus a few beers) are the only thing that lets me get a couple hours passed out.
Where are you flying that you’re doing 14 hours frequently?
I moved roughly halfway around the world from my hometown. Any time I want to see my family I fly 10-14 hours followed by a 3-5 hr connection. Just got back from a trip home that was 29 hours door to door, which was the first time since the pandemic that the airlines didn’t fuck me with delays and missed connections. The last two times were 40+ hours.
So once or twice a year?
I’m talking monthly or every couple weeks
Right, I only fly once or twice a year, but I’m not sure how frequency of flying relates to whether reclining a seat is acceptable on a long flight.
If you flew frequently you would understand
No…shape shifters?
Remember the lady who was acting crazy and thought the man sitting next to her was a shape shifter lol
Lol, I do not. She accused him of being a skin walker?
How about two drinks, plus a free drink from the airline you’re flying per half hour delayed? Seems more reasonable.
Ryanair wants to turn the airport into a pubcrawl.
Interesting.
Based Mr. O‘Leary I hope he finally makes flying accessible to everyone by introducing standing seats. I find it so inspiring that some CEOs actually care
