A Ryanair flight descended into chaos last week when staff were forced to strap an ‘unruly’ passenger to his seat using spare belts after he refused to sit down during landing.
The passenger onboard the flight from Manchester to Rhodes, Greece, on April 3 was shouting at cabin crew who onlookers said had confiscated two bottles of booze from him and refused to serve him alcohol.
He failed to follow orders to sit down during landing, forcing the pilot to abort the descent, circle round, and land again.
Video shows staff and other passengers huddled around the man and a member of staff shouting: ‘Sit down, now.’
A separate clip shows police officers appearing to escort the man down the aisle upon landing.
Passenger Emily, 26, who filmed the incident, said: ‘The flight was going completely fine until the cabin crew came up to me and my partner at the front of the plane and asked us if we were travelling together and if we could be separated because a little girl needed to come down to the front of plane with her dad because a man was being disruptive.
‘We were together so they asked someone else instead who moved and that’s when I got made aware of this guy being really disruptive at the back of the plane.’
Emily explained how cabin crew had to get two spare seatbelts and tried pinning the man down on his seat.
A Ryanair flight from Manchester to Rhodes on April 3 was forced to return to the air after attempting to land after a passenger refused to sit down
Onlookers said cabin crew had confiscated two bottles of alcohol from him and had refuse to serve him booze
Rhodes police were called on to the flight upon landing to take the man off the plane
‘He got out of the seat again. Staff were shouting at him, telling him to sit down and he was squaring up to staff.
‘He had already had two bottles of alcohol confiscated off him.’
She added that airline employees had warned over the intercom that anyone caught drinking alcohol purchased at Duty Free before the flight would be apprehended by police upon landing unless they put it away, in which case no further action would be taken.
Emily said: ‘As we were supposed to come down to land I could hear cabin crew shout at him to sit down.
‘We had to go back up to circle the island until he would sit down again which was quite scary.
‘Once [we] had landed we all had to stay put while police came up to take him off. He got taken off on his own.’
A spokeswoman for Ryanair said: ‘The crew of this flight from Manchester to Rhodes on April 3 called ahead for police assistance after a passenger became disruptive onboard. The aircraft was met by local police upon arrival at Rhodes Airport and this passenger was removed.
‘Ryanair has a strict zero tolerance policy towards passenger misconduct and will continue to take decisive action to combat unruly passenger behaviour, ensuring that all passengers and crew travel in a safe and respectful environment, without unnecessary disruption.
The incident comes after Ryanair said last month it was renewing its calls for a pre-flight drink limit
‘This is a matter for local police.’
The incident comes after Ryanair said last month it was renewing its calls for a pre-flight drink limit after a topless man went on a rampage through Dublin airport after missing his flight.
Footage shared online showed the man, believed to have been ‘intoxicated’ with a face covering pacing around Terminal 1 and launching items back and forth on March 17.
Dublin airport confirmed that a passenger had been arrested after causing ‘significant damage to our airport’, as many travelled to celebrate St, Patrick’s Day.
The budget airline told Irish outlet Newstalk that following the incident, it will impose a 10-year ban on the passenger and has renewed its call for a two drink limit at airport bars.
Lukas Kaunietis, who unleashed the wrecking spree at the airport, was ‘quickly apprehended’ by Airport Police before being arrested by An Garda Síochána, they said in a statement.
He was later charged with a number of counts of criminal damage.
Ryanair chief Michael O’Leary has also said in January that placing a limit on the amount of alcoholic drinks served to passengers would result in a ‘safer travel experience for passengers and crews’.
A Ryanair spokesperson also condemned European governments for ‘repeatedly’ failing to ‘take action when disruptive passengers threaten aircraft safety and force them to divert’.
He went on: ‘It is time that European Union authorities take action to limit the sale of alcohol at airports.
‘Airlines like Ryanair already restrict and limit the sale of alcohol on board our aircraft, particularly in disruptive passenger cases.
‘However, during flight delays, passengers are consuming excess alcohol at airports without any limit on purchase or consumption.’
Ryanair’s call for a two-drink limit was first made by O’Leary in August last year, as he reported an increase in disorder on flights.
O’Leary admitted that the airline saw a ‘spike’ of violent disorder among its passengers over the summer, adding that flights to party hotspot Ibiza were often the rowdiest.
‘If the price of putting a drink limit on the airport, where the problem is being created, is putting a drink limit on board the aircraft, we’ve no problem with that’, he told Sky News.
‘The real issue is how do we stop these people getting drunk at airports particularly as, like this summer, we’ve had a huge spike in air traffic control delays.
Ryanair’s recent remarks on drink limits came after the carrier announced that it was starting to take legal action to recover losses against disruptive passengers, as part of a ‘major misconduct clampdown’.
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