Airline pleads with airport bars to enforce 2-drink limit amid lawsuit against disruptive passengers

They don’t want a “flight” of beer.

US airlines aren’t the only ones looking to hit cruisers with booze. Ryanair has renewed calls for airport bars to limit the number of drinks served to passengers amid a “major crackdown on misconduct”.

“It is time for the European Union authorities to take action to restrict the sale of alcohol at airports,” a representative of the Irish budget carrier said in a statement, via Yahoo News.

Under their proposals, the watering holes would serve a maximum of two drinks per passenger as a measure to deter jet skiers from wreaking havoc at 30,000 feet.

Last week, Ryanair announced it had sued a passenger for just over $15,000 after a flight from Dublin, Ireland to Lanzarote, Spain was forced to divert to Porto, Portugal and be delayed overnight due to their disruptive behaviour.

A Ryanair spokesman accused European governments of failing to take action “when disruptive passengers threaten the safety of aircraft and force them to divert”.

They feel that putting sauce restrictions in flight hubs would result in “a safer travel experience for passengers and crew,” according to the representative.

The airline already restricts the sale of alcohol on board, but that doesn’t stop people from drinking during layovers or delays, representatives claim.

“During flight delays, passengers are consuming excess alcohol at airports without any restrictions on purchase or consumption,” they stated. “We fail to understand why passengers at airports are not limited to two alcoholic drinks (using their boarding pass in the same way they limit duty-free sales), as this would result in safer and better passengers on the plane.”

The need for a two-drink maximum was also raised in August by Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, who claimed that drunk passengers were not falling alone or sleeping like in previous years.

He said that nowadays “pills and powder” are often thrown into the mix, leading to “much more aggressive behaviour” towards crew and other passengers.

“Passengers fighting each other is now a growing trend on board the plane,” he said, who claimed that these in-flight fistfights happened once a week.

Airlines on this side of the pond have also tossed around the idea of ​​restricting the sale of alcohol to discourage drinkers on cruises.

In 2022, American Airlines flight attendants proposed to cut people off after two drinks amid ongoing efforts to curb bad behavior, which increased during the pandemic and often included drunken flyers.

Currently, there is no federal law that limits the number of beverages that can be served to a passenger in the air.

However, crew members are prohibited from serving alcohol to people who appear intoxicated.