00:00I'm just having a pre-flight drink of water because I know that flying dehydrates.
00:07However, it is certainly the case that lots of people want something rather stronger than that
00:13and they very often want to have a pint or two or maybe more early in the morning.
00:19Michael O'Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, is saying that the incidents of air rage leading to diversions with
00:28unruly passengers
00:29is increasing to a point where really there is no alternative but to reduce the number of drinks that you
00:38can have.
00:39The airport, you might think, well, how are they going to do that?
00:43And that is really a problem that I am finding too, because if you try to say, oh, we'll mark
00:51it on your boarding pass.
00:52Well, hang on, we've all got mobile-only boarding passes and it seems impossible to police.
00:59You perhaps have a central database, so your boarding pass will be scanned, but who's going to operate that?
01:05It just strikes me as unworkable.
01:09Once you get on the aircraft, of course, the cabin crew can kind of police the amount of alcohol you
01:15are served.
01:16Although, once I remember, on a flight from Gdansk to London, the chap next to me ordered four miniature bottles
01:24of wine,
01:25which I think is perhaps excessive for a two-hour flight, and he was very happily served with those.
01:32A bigger problem, though, I think, is people buying the duty-free stuff
01:38and then surreptitiously and illegally opening it and drinking it on planes.
01:43There is a problem with alcohol and aviation, and I think we will either stagger on like this
01:51with hopefully fewer examples of air rage and diversions
01:55by specifically making the perpetrators pay for all the costs of that diversion.
02:03Ryanair and Jet2, to some extent, have already done that.
02:06But longer term, I could see a time when you simply separate alcohol and aviation.
02:14I hope that we do not see any kind of incident involving alcohol, which leads to the loss of life.
02:22Were we to do so, there would be very serious questions.
02:25And I'm old enough to remember when smoking on flights was absolutely normal.
02:32When, in the 1980s and 1990s, it started to be banned.
02:37There was uproar.
02:38You can't possibly do this.
02:39But, of course, these days, the idea of smoking on a plane is preposterous.
02:45So things might change.
02:47Meanwhile, stick to water or just make sure that you are drinking responsibly and behaving nicely.
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