More on the Disruptive behaviour on board UK aircraft figures for 2007/08.
According to the Department for Transport, over the past four years, there has been an increasing awareness of the issue, and the introduction of zero-tolerance policies in dealing with disruptive passengers has seen an improvement in reporting by some airlines. So, rather than an actual significant rise in the number of disruptive incidents occurring during the last two years it is likely that we have seen a continued increase in reporting. There may be parallels here with other reporting of assaults and threats, in the NHS for instance. Police or airport security attended 437 (16%) incidents in 2007/08, compared to 345 (also 16%) in 2006/07. Police or security were reported to have attended 52% of serious incidents and 32% of all violent incidents (both serious and significant). <br><br>Although no information is available on the exact demographic of UK passengers carried by reporting airlines compared to disruptive passengers, the reports do provide some information on the types of people involved in an offence.<br><br>Some 83% of reports indicated whether the perpetrator was male or female. Of these, 74% involved male passengers and 26% involved female passengers. The ratio of male to female disruptive passengers has remained relatively stable over the past five years, while the proportion of reports indicating the sex of the perpetrator has steadily increased.<br><br>The data indicates that the predominant age group committing disruptive passenger incidents in 2007/08 was those in their 30s. Although the age group most commonly perpetrating an incident has remained the same from 2006/07 to 2007/08, the percentage of reports where the age is given has increased from 16% to 21%. However, this is still a low proportion of the total number of reports therefore this statistic should be treated with caution.<br><br>Some 38% of reports indicated whether the perpetrator was travelling alone or in a group (including people travelling with only one other person). Of these, 17% involved passengers travelling alone; this figure has been steadily decreasing over the past five years, from 31% in 2003/04.<br><br>There were 31 reports of incidents involving groups of 10 or more people in 2007/08, compared to 40 in the previous reporting year. Incidents are viewed as involving a large group even if only one member of the group is reported as being disruptive, provided that other members of the group have contributed to the incident. This could include attempting to intervene on behalf of the perpetrator or by supplying him or her with alcohol.
Some 35% of reported incidents were described “general disruptiveness”, while 38% of reported incidents involved verbal abuse and 28% involved passengers disobeying airline staff.
Smoking
Smoking featured in 24% of reports, of which 88% involved smoking in the toilet, compared to 82% in 2006/07. Furthermore, smoking restrictions were identified as a contributory factor in 25% of reports. Since the contributory factor is slightly higher than the actual number of reported smoking incidents, it may be concluded that the desire to smoke has contributed to a small number of other incidents.
Alcohol
Alcohol was identified as playing a part in the behaviour of passengers in 39% of reported incidents. Of these incidents: 27% involved passengers drinking their own alcohol, 13% involved passengers drinking alcohol supplied by the airline, and 22% involved alcohol drunk by passengers before boarding. A further 38% of incidents where alcohol was suspected to be a contributory factor do not state the source of the alcohol. Because this category includes suspected alcohol consumption, it is to be expected that the source of the alcohol is not known in some cases.
Violence
Violence was involved in 7% of reported incidents, which is a lower proportion than in any of the past five years. The most common contributory factor to a violent incident is alcohol; the second most common is a conflict with other passengers.
In many reported incidents a warning was given to the offending passenger. In 25% of cases, the warning was reported to have been effective, while in 26% of cases, the warning was not effective (in the remainder, the effectiveness of the warning was not reported).
There were five reported incidents where passengers were physically restrained by handcuffs and/or a strap and in a further 11 cases other forms of restraint were used. This is lower than in 2006/07, where there were 21 reported incidents of passengers being physically restrained by handcuffs or a strap and a further 21 where other forms of restraint were used.
Removed
There were 284 cases of passengers being removed from the aircraft in 2007/08, compared to 235 in 2006/07. This number has steadily increased over the past five years. In 13 cases, the aircraft had to discontinue taxi or take-off procedures and return to the stand to offload the passenger. In 15 cases the aircraft had to divert during the flight. This translates to a rate of 13.9 diversions per million flights, compared to 13.6 in 2006/07. Disruptive passenger reporting forms are filled out at the time of the incident. Therefore, it is very difficult to know how many incidents led to an arrest or other police action.
