Like many people, I’m tired of having to endure the ever worsening standards of passenger behaviour on British short-haul holiday flights. A couple of weeks ago I flew out to Tenerife with easyJet although, in fairness, it could have been virtually any holiday airline flight. The problem concerned a group of about 10 noisy women, aged, I would guess, from 25 to 55 years who, as they boarded the plane and walked down the aisle towards me, caused me to think, please don’t sit near me. Unfortunately, they did.
Most of them appeared to have been drinking and throughout the whole four and a half hour flight they kept up a loud and incessant racket, like over-excited infants on a school trip. They constantly leaned over their seats, shouted loudly to their friends in different parts of the plane, bumped into other passengers as they walked along the aisle and on a number of occasions swore loudly and made vulgar comments. They sang noisily at the tops of their voices and drank constantly. On separate occasions, two gentlemen nearby asked them to keep the noise down and for their trouble received a torrent of verbal abuse which continued for the rest of the flight.
In short, they were out of control and, as I mentioned to one of the cabin crew, their loutish behaviour was so bad that if carried out on the high street would undoubtedly have led to their arrests or at the very least, a police caution. Sadly, this kind of behaviour is all too common in modern Britain and whilst I would not wish to be a killjoy nor a hypocrite (having over the years enjoyed the odd drop myself!) I do feel that there have to be limits. Why should normal, decent, civilised people have their lives made a misery by drunken louts?
I’ve given this matter some thought and suggest that, rather than try Canute-like to stem the seemingly inevitable tide of bad behaviour, airlines should actually cater specifically for people who choose to fly in a state of intoxication and behave in a way that is unacceptable to most of us. I think they should create special booze flights where drinking is not only accepted but positively encouraged. All the hen and stag parties and other miscellaneous drunks could fly together on specific booze flights leaving the rest of us to travel in peace on normal standard flights. The booze flights could operate on a self-service, all-inclusive, eat and drink till you throw up basis for an additional figure of, say £50 per head, so that the airlines can still make a profit.
They could do away with cabin crew, lock the pilots behind extra strength, sound-proofed security doors and just leave the passengers to it. Each booze plane would be specially fitted with plastic fire resistant walls and seats so that smoking could be allowed. In fact, why not do away with seats completely since most of these plebs seem unable to keep still during flights and none of them pay attention to the safety demonstration. How about adding a disco to help create that special party atmosphere?
At the end of each flight the plane could be hosed down in readiness for the next lot – a bit like the drunk-proof, plastic-floored black cabs used in our city centres. They could even have their own websites so that there would be no possibility of booking the wrong flights. How about offyourface.com, plebsontour.co.uk or flydrunk.com for example? The permutations are endless!
Clearly, all these suggestions are made somewhat tongue in cheek but I’m registering the domain names just in case!
Common Sense 
John, yes a typical observation. As a fairly regular passenger myself to Tenerife and other short-hall destinations, this is an all too common occurance. In fact on some occasions when my flight has been similarly disrupted, when all else fails, I have thought the only answer is to join the 'bawdy bunch' and drink myself in to the same drunken state, so as not to be further disturbed by the goings on, only to be shocked back to reality by my wife, who usually reminds me that 'after landing I will have to drive the car'!But what a great idea to group them altogether! Perhaps we could also consider 'flights only for parents with very young children' as well, because I'm sure, like me, you have also had the displeasure of some hyper 3 or 4 year old, constantly kicking at your seat from behind, while an equally annoying youngster is peering over the seat in front, reminscincent of some gargoyle, or for your older readers looking like the '30's comedian Norman Evans as a 'chad' in 'over the garden wall'! As with your suggestion for the drinking passengers, perhaps for these uncontrolable families we could also have a separate airline, 'bratzs-away' for instance.Seriously though, all of this is something we will continue to put up with, and after all, I have 5 young grandchildren of my own, who I adore!'Happy Flying'
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