Denied boarding due to excess alcohol. What happens next when abroad?

[Cheeseandlobster]

I will try to keep the details vague and I know this isn't an aibu but I am posting for traffic

I flew home from holiday recently. At check in there was a woman in a wheelchair who looked unwell travelling with her dp and 2 young children. She was at our gate lying on the floor and her partner said she was drunk and had been the whole week they were away. He said he had had enough. The gate staff asked cabin crew who denied the woman boarding. At this stage her dp was openly crying and people were being really kind helping him to source spare nappies for his youngest and giving water etc. One woman in particular was being incredibly kind and helpful.

However the situation has been playing on my mind. She told cabin crew he was violent to her. The helpful lady said she had witnessed the woman physically going for her dp. But she did have a bruise on her face which he said was caused by falling over drunk. She was also verbally aggressive to staff.

So her dp and children boarded and she was left behind. Her dp said she had money but I don't know how much. I am certain insurance won't pay out for a hotel etc but she was obviously very vulnerable and it has been playing on my mind. I don't know whether the airline would have had a duty of care but the last I saw of her was her slumped sideways in the wheelchair at the gate. Violent or not she must have been very frightened and I don't know whether the airline would have looked after her. Does anyone know whether they would have ensured she was safe?

Yup I’m aware of sexual exploitation and the abuse they go through. How they are threatened along with their family members with violence and death to keep quiet. How they are tricked into coming for a better life. When I am aware I report to the authorities and help the victim(s) escape.

But this thread isn’t about this. It’s about a woman who was so pissed that airport staff alerted cabin crew and as a result she wasn’t allowed to board. A pp even posted news articles where woman have gotten pissed some in charge of children.

There was also a news article today about a violent woman who has been imprisoned. There’s probably people on this thread who will say her sentence was unfair, not her fault etc.

No - @BigFatLiar is likely remembering the time, until relatively recently, when men could not be raped as a matter of criminal law.

Women could be raped and this crime could incur a maximum of a life sentence. For men, however, who suffered ‘rape’, this was deemed assault and punishable with a maximum sentence of 10 years.

fortunately the law has caught up and as a matter of criminal law men can now be raped

Why should the airline be responsible for her. Unless someone poured alcohol down her throat then she made a choice to get drunk. Save your sympathy for the children

Just wondering why the people who use these threads as a vehicle to hammer home that MN has 'double standards' are ignoring that the woman said she had been assaulted by the man? Have you made up your own back story as well, that because the woman is drunk, she is an alcoholic and a liar who is inventing abuse from her partner? Or are you merely glossing over that inconvenient part of the scenario, because it doesn't fit your own narratives?

I may be going against the grain on Mumsnet but as we only have the OPs post to go by...
On one hand we have a struggling dad trying to look after two children and sort out a drunk wife who was being violent to him and abusing staff, on the other we have a violent drunk telling all its her husband who's violent while abusing the staff and him.
🤔i think I'll go with him being the one who's struggling with his partner. May not be popular on Mumsnet.

@5128gap - One of the reasons why an extremely inebriated person is vulnerable is because they can’t be trusted to give an accurate account of anything much while totally inebriated. They are highly likely to injure themselves stumbling around or even launching themselves aggressively at someone who comments negatively on their drunkenness - and highly likely then to blame that person for their injury. They are also at risk of getting deliberately hurt by others and not being believed because, frankly, as already pointed out, they are completely unreliable and untrustworthy witnesses while in that state, as they don’t have full control of their own senses, and after they have sobered up, unlikely to have particularly accurate recall then, either. So, her hurling accusations around and being aggressive towards cabin crew and anyone else who approaches her is pretty typical of an aggressive drunk, and a bruised face a pretty common occurrence in someone so drunk they have to be shoved into a wheelchair to get them from A to B without faceplanting.

So, as per @BigFatLiar , I am more inclined to believe the husband’s account in this instance.

I think disbelieving an accusation of assault, regardless of whether the accuser is a man or woman, just on the basis they are drunk, is very dangerous.

Yes sex trafficking happens but you said you were aware of several hundred drugged women in your neighborhood. That is not something I have seen or read and it seems it would need immediate intervention to save these women.certainly if I knew of several hundred women being drugged and trafficked around me, I would do something.

We know he is a victim as it was witnessed. If she is also a victim then when she sobers up she can speak to someone about it.

That’s why drunks are vulnerable, as pointed out already. Obviously, they could have called the police, arrested the man for assault and taken the children into care in a foreign country, because apparently assault accusations must always be believed, however lacking in credibility, but I’m not convinced that would have benefited anyone whatsoever.

I lived in the Canary islands for a number of years and worked at the airport.

In the time I was there I saw more extremely drunk woman refused boarding than men.

This was woman in single sex groups and travelling abroad too.

We often had woman arriving having wet themselves just walking through the airport as if nothing had happened.

That's not to say the men didn't get drunk or we didn't have groups of drunk men. But their behaviour was always different and if they were to.d to sober up or be refused boarding they often did.

I have no idea why this is and of course is anecdotal of my experience at 1 airport. But I often wondered if it was because woman generally have less fee time from caring responsibilities and therefore are less able to know and manage their limits?

I realise this may be a bit nuanced, but there is a place between belief and disbelief. It's called keeping an open mind. It's a useful strategy to employ when you have no factual evidence. Presumably anyone tasked with looking into it would be familiar with the concept. Although obviously if the woman did report it they could just tell her she'd made it up and had really just walked into a door, because apparently drunk people must never be believed.

@5128gap - nobody said they didn’t believe her, though, only that they were more inclined to believe the woman was blind drunk and unfit to fly than that she was in that state because her husband had assaulted her.

That article says hundreds a year in the UK. Your claim of several hundred within a mile of your flat is clearly bollocks that you just made up.

The smell of alcohol is usually a give away, they may have been able to breathalise her, there are very simple portable ones. I speak as someone who hasn't drank now for many years as I do not have an off button. BUT it is my responsibility to drink or not drink, if someone, man or woman will interupt a flight, scare other passengers or are likely to make a scene, they simply cannot be allowed to board.

The accusations of assault can be dealt with when she sobers up.

The accusations of assault can be dealt with when she sobers up

As he had witnesses he should take the kids home change the locks and seek sole custody rather than leave them with a violent drunk.

The smell of alcohol is usually a give away, they may have been able to breathalise her, there are very simple portable ones.

Never ever heard of that being done by ground staff or cabin crew at the door, I suspect doing so would be very risky from a legal POV.

I do agree with you. If it's her rock bottom, goes for treatment and stops different story. It may well be his rock bottom when he realises he has to put himself and the kids first

They have airport police there wouldn't be a problem

I can see a few problems.

The crew/staff cannot insist the police breathalyse anybody.. they can ask police to attend the incident.

Whether the police can/would breathalyse in the circumstances described by the OP is one for a police/legal type person to answer and I suspect will be country dependent.

Regardless of any of the above looking back at the event as described by the OP, the passenger "had been verbally abusive to staff". If that abuse was extreme enough or prolonged enough then that in itself is going to trigger an offload, regardless of the passenger passing or failing any breath test.