Should Airports ban Alcohol?

There never seem’s to be a week that goes by without it being reported in  the media of an incident involving drink passengers on aircraft’s. This week in Cruise Bulletin there was a piece on whether airports should ban alcohol. This is a taboo (sorry couldn’t resist) subject. Quite a few of us like to have the odd glass in the departure lounge to get us in the mood or give us a bit of Dutch courage to board the plane. Interestingly a recent survey said around  76% of passengers enjoy a drink at the airport in the daytime who wouldn’t normally think about drinking in the day.It seems that airports don’t seem to have any kind of structure when it comes to how many drinks passengers consume before they board the aircraft. Once on board it’s down to the cabin crew to refuse them or monitor the amount passengers are drinking. A good friend of my is cabin crew with Easyjet and some of the stories she has told me is truly shocking. On one occasion a passenger was refused more drink but proceeded  to drink from the Vodka bottle they had bought in Duty Free from their bag. As if cabin crew haven’t got enough to do with looking after the passengers at X amount of feet above the ground, they have to act as bouncers also. She also told me the time a member of her staff was hit by a drunk passenger and subsequently the Police were waiting on the tarmac on arrival. Not only is this bad behaviour, but distressing for other passengers to witness.

So it brings me back to should we stop selling alcohol all together? Would this put people of flying altogether, and is it really the be all and end all? Perhaps they should start introducing opening times and some sort of monitoring scheme. But it will take a clever person to think of one.