Ryanair will fine disruptive passengers €500 if they are kicked off a flight

BUDGET airline Ryanair has announced that passengers who are thrown off a flight for misbehaving will be fined €500.

The Irish carrier said on Thursday that this would be ‘minimal’ penalty, adding that it will continue to take some people to court to claim damages.

In a statement, Ryanair said: “Passengers expect to travel in a comfortable and stress-free environment, with on-time arrival and no unnecessary disruptions caused by a small number of unruly passengers.”

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It stressed that the problem affects all carriers and reiterated its commitment to ‘tackle’ bad behaviour on board to protect its passengers and crew.

“Although these are isolated incidents that occur on all airlines, disruptive behaviour in such a small shared space is unacceptable, and we hope that our proactive strategy will serve as a deterrent to eliminate this on board our aircraft,” the statement continued.

Last January, Ryanair took legal action against a passenger who caused an altercation on a flight, and from whom it claimed €15,000 in damages.

The airline warned that it would adopt a ‘zero tolerance’ policy from then on and that it would continue to take ‘forceful measures’ to address ‘bad passenger behaviour’ on board planes.

The amount of money claimed is calculated based on the cost of accommodation and passenger expenses and landing costs, Ryanair explained.

Ryanair CEO, Michael O’Leary, already raised last August the possibility that passengers can only consume two alcoholic drinks at airports to avoid incidents before and during flights.

He stated that violent altercations on board planes now occur much more frequently, especially on certain routes to popular holiday destinations like Spain..

In his opinion, airport authorities should impose a limit of two alcoholic drinks per boarding pass to tackle the risk of incidents which also increases, he said, due to delays and increased waiting time at some airports giving more time for alcohol consumption

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