Two more flights to Tenerife requested priority landings due to incidents on board the plane yesterday (Friday), one for a disruptive passenger and the other because of a fight involving seven people, as reported by air traffic controllers on Twitter.
The first, TUI flight number BY7548, was en route to the Tenerife South airport from Birmingham due to land at 12:30pm, sent an alert to controllers informing of a passenger causing problems on board so asked for police assistance upon landing.
However, just a few minutes later they received another alert from British Airways flight number BA414, which was on its way from Heathrow to Tenerife, informing of a fight on board involving seven drunken passengers.
In both cases, Air traffic controllers activated the necessary protocols by clearing the flight path for them to land as quickly as possible and informed the emergency services so that the National Police were ready on the runway to board the planes and detain the passengers responsible before anyone else could disembark.
There have now been six incidents in April on flights bound for Tenerife involving passengers and alcohol:
- Easy Jet flight from Liverpool with a fight involving 12 people.
- Jet2 from Glasgow when a passenger urinated in the cabin.
- Ryanair flight from Manchester a fight between two passengers.
- Ryanair from Manchester with 15 women on a hen party removed from the plane before it took off.
- TUI flight from Birmingham because of a disruptive passenger.
- British Airways from Heathrow with a fight involving 7 passengers.
The two questions are why and how can it be stopped? Will it lead to banning alcohol on planes, breath tests before you board, or some sort of ‘flying’ licence with points on it that means you can get banned from flying in the same way as you can from driving?
Whatever the answer is, something needs to be done, because the current punishment of fines or deportation, isn’t working.
