Could One Too Many land you in jail?
- Sally Gethin
- Aug 13, 2024
- 2 min read
Many travellers don't realise that being drunk on board an aircraft is a criminal offence that could land you in jail. Up to two years in prison if you disrupt a flight due to intoxication or disruptive behaviour and a £5000 fine if you delay a flight from taking off and up to £80,000 if you cause a flight to be diverted.
A survey by Go.Compare has found that 40percent of passengers are unaware of the law against being drunk on a plane. And of those passengers, two thirds (68percent) have actually been drunk on a plane already. This leaves a third getting drunk anyway knowing that it's illegal.
Rhys Jones, travel expert at Go.Compare, said: “A surprisingly low number of travellers are aware that flying while drunk is actually illegal. This is likely making the problem worse, as many flyers don’t realise the risks they’re creating by drinking too much."
The aviation industry is working hard to reduce the number of disruptive incidents and combat the trend, which has been rising in recent years. Under the One Too Many campaign, one in 640,000 passengers have been found to be disruptive onboard a commercial aircraft.
Airports in the UK are part of a campaign to tackle disruptive behaviour through a voluntary Code of Practice. Signatories to the Code work together to prevent and minimise the number of disruptive passenger incidents, and promote:
A zero-tolerance approach to disruptive behaviour
The identification, pre-emption, management and reporting of disruptive incidents
The responsible sale and consumption of alcohol; and
Education and communication with passengers.
Jones adds, “The volume of passengers being disrupted by this type of behaviour is worryingly high. So, while many are against strict restrictions, it’s clear that some sort of action may be required to bring the number down. Otherwise, the safety consequences could be very serious.”
Passengers may not realise that being drunk onboard invalidates their travel insurance.
“Insurance offers no protection for alcohol-related issues, so anyone who is kicked off a flight or denied boarding due to being drunk could lose their holiday and might have to cover their own losses,” says Jones.
Drunken behaviour has been a problem for a significant number of travellers: around a fifth (17%) said they’ve been on a flight that was disrupted by intoxicated passengers.
Unsurprisingly, the problem tends to be more common for travellers going on holiday. Around a fifth (17%) of flyers who travelled for leisure said they had been disrupted, compared to only 5% of those who were flying for business reasons. (source: Go.compare)
Airlines industry body IATA reports a 47percent increase in incidents. Part of this is also due to the sheer increase in volume in flights as well as the availability of alcohol preflight and inflight. The increase in low cost flights, party destinations and stag/hen do’s are fuelling the number of incidents.
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