Michael O'Leary doesn't want to be a (literal) buzzkill. But the Ryanair chief is now pushing for a two-drink max per boarding pass at airports, saying he thinks such a limit could help tamp down on the rise of inflight violence by inebriated fliers, reports the BBC. "We don't want to begrudge people having a drink," he tells the Telegraph. "But we don't allow people to drink-drive, yet we keep putting them up in aircraft at 33,000 feet."
O'Leary says incidents involving booze-fueled confrontations on planes, including assaults against crew, have risen this summer, and that staff can't always tell if passengers are under the influence before they board, especially if they're mixed in with family members or other passengers. "As long as they can stand up and shuffle they will get through," he says. But "then when the plane takes off, we see the misbehavior." At a recent presser, O'Leary said his Irish airline has seen "at least one bad case of assault on a weekly basis now," per the Independent.
Just a few years ago, he noted, such incidents were virtually nonexistent. O'Leary says that bags are searched at Ryanair boarding gates for particular destinations known for partying, such as Ibiza and the Greek islands, but sometimes passengers are already drunk from their airport stay, while some have taken other illicit drugs. The problem is exacerbated when flights are delayed, giving bored and antsy passengers more time to kill at the airport. "If your flight is delayed by two or three hours, you can't be guzzling five, six, eight, 10 pints of beer," he says. "Go and have a coffee or a cup of tea. It's not an alcoholics outing." (More Ryanair stories.)
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