Airline passengers have been banned from drinking duty-free wine and spirits on flights, in a bid to tackle a rise in alcohol-fuelled air rage incidents.
Under new rules introduced by World Duty Free - the sole provider of duty-free shops at most of Britain’s main airports - all duty-free alcohol must be placed in sealed bags, The Times says. Airlines have been calling for years for the move, which is aimed at preventing travellers from opening bottles until after their flight.
The bags will be labelled: “Do not open alcohol purchases until your final destination.” To get into the bags, passengers would require scissors or knives, which are banned from hand luggage as a security measure.
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Data from the Civil Aviation Authority showed that 422 serious incidents of air rage were reported in 2017, the joint-highest number on the books. The figure has doubled since 2014.
However, the scale of the problem could be far bigger: airlines claim that the real number of incidents runs into several thousand because only incidents that put aircraft at risk are logged by aviation authorities.
Airlines UK, which represents carriers, said: “Airlines have seen far too many examples of passengers illicitly consuming their own alcohol - most if not all of which has been bought from duty free - and this has contributed to the sharp increase in incidents we’ve seen over recent years.”
Meanwhile, Sky News reports that two men have been detained after a fight on a Ryanair flight from Glasgow to Tenerife left blood splattered across the cabin.
Police were called after a row broke out on the flight. An eye witness said: “It all started over a woman not wearing her shoes on the flight going to the toilet, and a very drunk man pulled her up about it, saying that someone would stand on her toes, then the woman’s boyfriend stepped in and tried to defuse the situation.”
The onlooker said that after the plane landed and “more alcohol was consumed”, the men started to fight. A photo posted on Twitter appeared to show blood on the door of an overhead luggage compartment.
