Here is why a major airline is suing an 'unruly' passenger

Friday, 10 January 2025

Here is why a major airline is suing an ‘unruly’ passenger

by BD Banks

When one misbehaves aboard a flight, the consequences can range from a strongly-worded warning from the crew to being banned from the airline or even being placed on a governmental no-fly list.

In some extreme cases, an airline can also decide to take action against and sue a passenger.

This is the recourse that Dublin-based budget carrier Ryanair (RYAOF) has chosen with a traveler who disrupted a flight between Dublin and Spain’s Canary Islands.

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‘This passenger’s inexcusable behavior forced this flight to divert’

On Jan. 8, the budget carrier announced that it had filed a lawsuit in a local circuit court that seeks €15,000 euros (roughly $15,468 USD) over an April 2024 incident in which a passenger’s disruptive behavior resulted in a flight that was supposed to go to Lanzarote to instead be diverted to nearby Porto in Portugal.

“This passenger’s inexcusable behaviour forced this flight to divert to Porto where it was delayed overnight, causing 160 passengers to face unnecessary disruption,” Ryanair wrote of the lawsuit.

The carrier is not elaborating on what exactly the traveler did but said that it is suing to recoup the financial losses of having to divert the plane and accommodate 160 people overnight until a new flight was available.

It is also a way to make an example of passengers who misbehave aboard flights by showing what could happen.

“This demonstrates just one of the many consequences that passengers who disrupt flights will face as part of Ryanair’s zero tolerance policy,” the Ryanair spokesperson said further.

Airlines have taken multiple steps to crack down on misbehaving passengers

Since the 2020 covid-19 pandemic, both airlines and aviation authorities have observed an increase in the number of misbehaving passengers.

After reporting a nearly 492% spike between 2020 and 2021 on U.S. flights, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) implemented a “zero tolerance” policy in which even a single instance of dangerous behavior can get one placed on a no-fly list or, in the most extreme cases, referred to the FBI for investigation.

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The number of unruly passengers, which are classified as anyone who jeopardizes the safety of the flight, has since been dropping steadily, although still not down to what was observed pre-pandemic in 2019.

“There’s absolutely no excuse for unruly behavior,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in an Aug. 24 statement on the progress the agency has made to combat the problem. “It threatens the safety of everyone on board and we have zero tolerance for it.”

While these actions have focused primarily on customers who fight flight attendants or disobey their instructions, in recent weeks the industry has been seeing an increase of those who sneak onto flights without a ticket.

On Jan. 6, JetBlue (JBLU) workers conducting safety checks discovered the bodies of two people who snuck onto a flight from JFK to Hawaii, while two weeks earlier United Airlines (UAL) workers found a human body in one of the compartments of the plane’s landing gear at Maui’s Kahului Airport.

In both cases, the travelers who suffered such a tragic end likely snuck onto the aircraft as stowaways.