HERE<\/a><\/p>\nMy partner and I were considerably lucky. We managed to score a return journey to Leeds the following day. It meant our friend had to drive 70 miles to collect us. We only had a few hours of sleep. We were significantly out of pocket.<\/p>\n
Others were not so fortunate. Elderly people were struggling to work their mobile phones. Single parents were close to tears with their children fearful of having nowhere to go.<\/p>\n
Some passengers I spoke to claimed they couldn’t find a flight home until Wednesday – some four days later – meaning children faced missing days at school. Vital hospital appointments may not have been attended. Income could be lost from days unavoidably missed at work.<\/p>\n
As I lay in bed in our less-than-perfect hotel room for the night, complete with broken air con and a view of the bins outside after arriving in the early hours of the morning following what felt like an eternity of chaos, the anger quickly set in. It isn’t good enough.<\/p>\n
Take our situation – hours spent trying to find somewhere to stay and a flight home, complete with insurmountable stress and concern. Then multiply that dozens of times. You realise just how much chaos a late-night cancellation causes for so many.<\/p>\n
![\"The](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0_lennonJPG.jpg\")
The queue outside the airport after my flight was suddenly cancelled due to a ‘disruptive’ passenger(Image: Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n
It simply shouldn’t be allowed to happen. How are drunken idiots able to cause chaos for so many?<\/p>\n
The airline, easyJet, told me that following disruptive incidents on board, and where deemed necessary, they will take ‘additional sanctions’, which can include banning them flying with the airline again.<\/p>\n
Stories are rife online about flights being cancelled or diverted due to disruptive passengers. I have written countless numbers of them.<\/p>\n
In some cases, we see people hauled before the courts in the UK for their antics mid-flight, but by that point, the damage is already done.<\/p>\n
In the UK, it is a criminal offence to be drunk on an aircraft, regardless of whether your behaviour is disruptive. But, unless drama well and truly kicks off, I imagine it’s unlikely that anyone really ever gets questioned or caught out.<\/p>\n
And when a person forces an aircraft to make an emergency landing, penalties can include being fined or imprisonment. Again, they may then face the music, but it’s too late. The harm has been suffered. I strongly doubt in most cases that those responsible are aware of the scale of upheaval, stress and anxiety they have caused for hundreds of people.<\/p>\n
![\"My](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0_French-strikes.jpg\")
My easyJet flight was cancelled(Image: PA)<\/p>\n
But it’s their ability to be able to get drunk in the first place, either in the airport or once on the aircraft, that needs to be questioned – not that I know what the answer is.<\/p>\n
Of course, I don’t know exactly what happened on the inbound flight that caused my return journey to be cancelled, but I’m sure on-board crew stood no chance when trying to stop someone from drinking, from being aggressive, or when denying them service.<\/p>\n
So what is the solution? It may not be to introduce the ‘fun police’ and ban alcohol from airports or planes altogether, because the majority of us do behave responsibly. Some people need it for their pre-flight nerves, and others just want a glass of fizz to celebrate the start of a well-earned break.<\/p>\n
Maybe it’s just that we all, when flying, need to just be a damn sight more considerate of one another, and have a few less vodkas, in the hope that everyone can get home, or abroad, without any trouble.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Disruptive passengers too often cause mayhem on flights abroad. It simply shouldn’t be allowed to happen, writes James…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":442355,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[51,1011,183,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-442354","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-easyjet","10":"tag-travel","11":"tag-uk","12":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115245814243901644","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=442354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/442354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/442355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=442354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=442354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=442354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"James](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0_get_attachment_url-2.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Passengers](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0_lennon-2JPG.jpg\")
Passengers on my flight home from Malaga when it was cancelled(Image: Liverpool Echo)<\/p>\n![](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/0_Households-survey.jpg\")
(Image: PA)<\/p>\n