The popular European airline, Ryanair, is calling for a two alcoholic drink limit to be introduced at British airports. They’re doing so after the BBC published U.K. government statistics showing a 51 percent increase in airport arrests of intoxicated individuals.
As the BBC notes, “387 people were arrested between February 2016 and February 2017 – up from 255 the previous year.”
This is not terribly surprising. For many years, drinking at airports has been a fundamental part of British vacationing. Most can handle their drinks and keep their consumption under control. But for many young Britons on bachelor and bachelorette parties, there’s an almost cult-like adherence to getting drunk before boarding the plane. Travel through a British airport terminal that has individuals traveling to short-hop destinations and you’ll see bars packed with inebriated citizens in idiotic t-shirts.
Still, it’s a challenge with global reach. Last summer, 20 Britons were met by police at Las Vegas’ international airport after getting wasted over the Atlantic Ocean.
This problem needs confronting. Fortunately, doing so shouldn’t be too difficult to address. Nor must it involve capping drinks per passenger.
The first issue, drunks on a plane, can be resolved by simply revoking the tickets of drunk passengers. At present, there’s little risk posed by getting drunk before boarding a plane. That’s because airlines tend to allow drunk passengers on board, or simply rebook them on the next flight. Were they to revoke a ticket, however, airlines would create an expensive deterrent against stupid behavior. And tougher criminal penalties could be introduced to prosecute drunken behavior once in the air.
For drunks in the airport, I see the solution as a three-step approach of security officers, bars, and airlines. If a passenger is drunk at the security checkpoint, he or she should be put on a two-hour access hold. That will make being drunk the equivalent of missing one’s flight.
If a passenger is drunk at a bar, he or she should be asked to leave that bar. But the U.K. could also mandate the showing of a boarding pass in order to purchase alcoholic drinks. The names of ticket holders could then be entered into a network shared by all the bars in a terminal. That would mean a passenger could not simply leave one bar and get served in another. It would also allow bars to inform airlines that a drunk passenger will shortly be turning up at one of their departure gates. The airliner could then pay special attention to whether the drunk is fit to travel.
Ultimately, this is not an intractable problem. Most of those getting drunk and misbehaving are doing so because they have been able to do so in the past. If consequences and safeguards are introduced to deal with future drunkenness, those doing so would quickly learn to calibrate their drinking. And most Britons would remain able to celebrate the start of their vacations without punished for the sins of others.
