British booze ban?

Most passengers, like most people, are content to have a drink or two, are not disruptive and do not cause any incidents. Indeed, a drink earlier in the day than would otherwise be societally acceptable is a marker of getting into the holiday spirit for many good-natured and undisruptive passengers, and a lounge beer or wine is a perk many frequent flyers cherish.

The profits from entirely legal airport alcohol sales, too, are partly used to offset landing fees for airlines, which are then passed on to passengers in the form of lower ticket prices – so it can’t be argued that the airport bars and duty frees are creating only negative externalities for airlines.

Yet reported incidents of disruption on the aircraft and at the airport are on the rise globally, and in the age of the video-capable smartphones it seems barely a week goes past without a report of a passenger (or, less frequently a crewmember) behaving badly under the influence (see Australian Aviation, February 2015).

Disruptions can be hugely expensive for an airline and for individual passengers not responsible for any incident – let alone for the perpetrators, with whom airlines seem to have an increasing lack of patience, and who are to be billed for the cost of diversions.

The aviation industry, however, is not speaking with one mind on how to solve the issue.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, airline trade bodies point to the airside alcohol licencees, whose trade bodies point to duty free retailers. Even the most cursory of glances suggests that perhaps all three types of alcohol retailer might wish to come to some sort of agreement rather than trying to game the prisoner’s dilemma given the relative unpredictability of government ministerial changes (not to mention the UK’s continual dithering about airport policy, which makes Badgery’s Creek look a rosy picture in comparison).

Unintended consequences, like the possibilities of cracking into duty free liquor – stronger and with greater effect by volume, indeed, than an airport beer or two – either at the airport or on the aircraft, will need to be carefully considered. Moreover, the costs of any potential ban need to be weighed up: are the reductions in landing fees charged to airlines and thus passenger ticket prices from alcohol sales greater than the amount of money lost by disruptive incidents in the year? If so, logic would suggest that the industry as a whole should discard questions of cost in favour of a decision on safety grounds.

Yet is a new approach needed, or does the industry simply need to get working together to join up the solutions? In terms of overconsumption on the plane, it is relatively easier for a flight attendant, assisted on larger aircraft by thoughtfully designed seatback ordering systems and alerts around potential overconsumption, to monitor the behaviour of a single passenger or group of passengers. Despite Responsible Service of Alcohol requirements at airports, it is easier to move from bar to bar in the terminal and overimbibe (let alone crack open the cut-price bottle of vodka in Departures) than it is to do so with booze purchased on the aircraft itself.

One potential solution to the airport bar side of the question is technological, and not particularly difficult to put in place. A boarding pass-based system restricting the number of alcohol units served to any one passenger (and potentially any passenger on a linked reservation or PNR) over time could usefully restrict heavy drinkers, while still enabling passengers who arrive at an airport early or who have a longer connection to enjoy their time in the departures area.

On the airport duty free side, and requiring less technology but more human input, the tactics of delivering duty free at the gate or of sealing any purchases in a tamper-evident bag have worked well to reduce risk in certain situations and in recent airport tests. On certain flights at higher risk of alcohol-fuelled disruption, these bags could be retained separately in a specific overhead locker or other storage area by the crew – or, as in certain Bali flights, banned entirely by the airline.

It may well be that these methods together can reduce the risk to a level acceptable to all – airlines, airport bars, airport duty free alcohol retailers, regulators, passengers, and, indeed, politicians – without resorting to a blanket ban.

The costs of any potential ban need to be weighed up.