Has anyone experienced police meeting a flight after disruptive passengers?

[Policeontheplane]

Has anyone experienced police on a plane?

Yesterday our flight was eventful. Some drunk people moved themselves to the empty seats in front of me and produced to drink a litre of vodka which they then dropped in front of staff. The staff removed their passports, cue their bad language getting worse. It was all made worse by the drunk man behind me deciding to egg them on. At some point of the guys in front of me apparently threatened another passenger. Air steward told pliot who presumably contacted police. As we were landing the drunk guys in front of us had a big falling out and one got out of his seat, took his suitcase out of the overhead locker and ended up swapping seat.

When we landed everyone was told to return to seats and the air steward told the man who had threatened a passenger to get his bags and escorted him off first - not sure what hapened. I suspect police were waiting for him. Other drunk passengers were just allowed to leave.

Has anyone had experience of this? Will any of them be barred from flying on the airline.

On a flight to NZ via Singapore. On the first leg from Heathrow to Singapore a woman kicked off big time about 3 hours into the flight. Proper screaming, and shouting abuse when they refused to serve more alcohol. Crew eventually restrained her in the galley with zip ties and she still carried on for hours! We all had to wait on landing in Singapore for armed police to escort her off. Saddest thing is she had a young girl, maybe 7 or 8 travelling with her.

Good grief @AnotherExpatKiwi can you imagine the training! Now here's what you do if you have to restrain a passenger. Take it in turns to try. Make sure you fight back. The zip ties are kept next to the orange juice cartons.

I'd go with that. Every time I leave the UK I look wistfully at the 2 litres of Tanqueray for £25 and think 'if I buy it, I have to take it away with me and bring it back, which is too much hassle', or I can't bring it back because I'm hand luggage only and the return airport still has the 100 ml liquids restriction.

Not my flight, but the one that had landed and we were supposed to be getting on. Last flight out of Sharm, someone had got trollied, and set a fire in either a seat or toilets. We got put up in a hotel, missed a day's work,(dd got sacked from her Saturday job)couldn't claim on insurance. You can imagine the Egyptian police werent very sympathetic to him.

I live an hour from Benidorm, between Alicante & Valencia. I always know the Alicante flight will horrendous. Not so bad in the winter, but spring - Autumn 😫 Often fly into Valencia as it's about the same distance but so calm compared to Alicante

Yes, this is exactly how they are trained.

You may be interested to know that they have to partially unrestrain the passenger during takeoff and landing to comply with safety requirements in case there is a need for an emergency evacuation.

Yep. About two years year ago on a flight back from holiday in Spain landing in Manchester. A fella sat in the row behind me who had obviously had a few, decided to try smoking in the toilet. Naturally got caught and got gobby with the stewardesses about it.

When we landed, armed police came onto the aircraft to escort him off but, full of bravado, he continued to be a bit gobby. Right up until the officer lowered his gun and he shut up pretty quickly after that, was cuffed and escorted off the plane!

Why anyone would risk their ability to fly in future, I’ve no idea.

Yes. A drunk man punched another man who had asked him to stop swearing. Blood everywhere, the man who was punched was flat out in the aisle!

When we got to Heathrow we were asked to stay on the plane and armed police got on and arrested him. Those of us sitting nearby then had to stay on the plane to give statements. The puncher thought he'd got away with it. He changed his shirt obviously thinking he wouldn't be spotted.

It was very eventful as the woman behind me had a panic attack and leap across the seats and grabbed an armed copper, shouting "you've got to let me off this plane".

I ended up getting home at 2am and had to get up at 6 for work.

Thanks OP, this is a fascinating thread, such interesting / scary / sad experiences.

@UhOhRatPoo I love your answers! please can you do an AMA??

I was on a group holiday a few years back where, when we got on the plane (everyone had gone their separate ways in the airport to get a bit of space from each other after spending a week on the same small boat to go to different shops and restaurants) it transpired that one our our party had gone rogue in the airport and had been arrested.

I'd bumped into him in the shop where we'd had a puzzling conversation where he'd said that 'they' were following him around. Others had seen him arguing with airport staff. But we only knew that he wasn't flying back with us when a police officer came on the flight to inform us of this and that if he sat quietly at the airport police station until the next day, he could leave on the morning flight.

This happened on a flight I was on on the way back from New York many years ago. The turbulence was horrendous and I do wonder if that triggered the poor bloke's heart attack.

Fully agree. I’d happily forgo a drink if it meant not being cooped up with drunks on planes.

ex cabin crew here!

Happened fairly regularly that police would be called to arrest an unruly passenger. It was worse on particular routes (occasionally would be on an unusual route but it was often the same flights, eg a Thursday morning Alicante in May was always horrendous because it was prime stagdo/hen do long weekend season, so would be full of drunk people fighting/being loud/generally just being thuggish/ drinking their own alcohol/not listening etc) inevitably they would end up fighting with each other or the crew or doing something like smoking a cigarette in the toilet and then the police would be called to meet us when we land

i used to swap off certain flights because it was just always chaos and I was sick of getting delayed (sometimes to the point we would run out of hours and be stuck nightstopping) purely because of these idiots that can’t behave

Not a flight but a coach in USA when I was a child. Police put the man on our bus to take him across the border where police in that state would collect him.

He threatened the black people on the bus with blowing their brains out with the hand gun in his bag. It was harrowing to say the least. Thankfully, police did escort him off at the other end. I would hope this doesn't happen there nowadays.

I haven’t had this but I once got off a flight at Gatwick and there were about 10 armed police waiting who checked the passports of every male passenger as they disembarked. I never did find out why.

I'm so sorry for people who have to deal with awful passengers.
I guess at least in yours OP it didn't cause huge delays etc. I do get tipsy beforehand if its an evening flight, but I'm so conscious of being in trouble I'm always very very quiet and polite! Luckily never had anyone else causing a ruckus either.

I was talking to this lady who used to be a purser on BA first class to NY. This would've been years ago but still you weren't allowed to smoke. I asked her what they actually do if they suspect or catch someone smoking in the toilets. She said nothing?! But maybe that was because it was first class!

I’m sure some airport do or did a scheme where you can buy airside on your inbound flight before leaving but collect when you return.

Yes on a flight to Dublin. Drunk man wouldn’t sit down and was leery and abusive to staff and other passengers. The plane cheered when we landed and he was dragged off by the Garda!

Money.

I do think airlines should be better skilled/ have the resources ie: suitable personnel to not let them get on the flight in the first place.

I would almost want a refund if I was another passenger.

I haven't, but my dad's flight had to land at a different city to remove a drunk passenger before flying on. It was a rather notorious city in Central America, so I imagine the experience sobered him up quite rapidly.

exactly. It's batshit to complain (for airline/airport bosses, I mean, not other passengers) about rowdy customers when they are the ones selling the alcohol.
I've had a few delayed flights recently and the food/drink compensation vouchers were added directly to the boarding pass. If they can do that surely they can amend it so that you can't buy more than 1 drink at the airport, or similar. Yes there will always be people who find ways around it like buying more in duty free, but it will dramatically reduce the odds.

Even people who don't misbehaved to the point police need to be called are annoying/intimidating to other passengers.

I like a drink as much as the next person, but if you need to be pissed off your face to enjoy a holiday that's pretty depressing.

I hadn't thought about it before but after a pp pointed it out, it is absolutely mad that you can't take a large pair of scissors or a corkscrew in your hand luggage but can buy multiple glass bottles filled with flammable liquid! Given you are allowed to take lighters and safety matches on board how is that not a huge risk?

True...but it's often not as straightforward as some think...

Airports cost money to run.....

They recoup at least some of that by charging the airlines handling fees, landing fees, parking fees etc etc....(often thousands of £ per flight)

If the airport squeezes the airlines too much the airline says "I can't pay that and offer the cheap fares the paying public want....sod you, next season I'm moving my operation to the airport up the road (Ryanair are past masters at threatening this but they are not alone).

So the airport decides not to squeeze the airlines too much and instead tries to increase revenue from things like hospitality in the terminals...

Oh, and the answer in part is to empower ground staff and cabin crew to offload passengers, ensuring they don't penalised for delaying the flight....

And I've done a fair bit of flying, though not so much recently, only had police involvement onboard once maybe twice in 30 years...wish I could say the same for ambulances and/or paramedics.

Not quite the same but on our return from holiday this year, police were waiting behind customs (small airport no egates). A family was stopped in front of us and the father arrested and taken away in handcuffs in front of his family and other passengers. His poor children were absolutely heart broken. It was so sad to see. Whilst there was obviously a reason for the arrest, doing it so publicly was unnecessary and distressing for the poor children.

Yes. Returning to Heathrow on an 8hr flight. Passenger became abusive after his in-flight entertainment system failed. He was physically agitated but did not assault any of the crew. He was escorted off the plane at Heathrow but 8 armed police officers. Serves him right, I hope he was charged and banned