Laurence Dollimore
ALICANTE, Malaga and Mallorca are among the top four worst airports when it comes to passengers behaving badly.
New figures have revealed which of Spain’s destinations see the highest number of unruly passengers and the highest rates of ‘incidents’ where ‘conflicting’ travellers have led to planes being turned around, police being called and more.
Alicante had the highest number of incidents last year with 186, followed by Madrid on 180, Mallorca on 116 and Malaga on 105.
It’s no coincidence that the most affected airports are those next to popular tourist resorts.
Most of the incidents were caused by rowdy holidaymakers who were either under the influence of alcohol or drugs and/or did not follow flight safety rules and disobeyed cabin crew orders.
In the most extreme cases, flights were turned around and heavy sanctions have been imposed.
However airport security agency AESA said things are only getting worse.
Last year there were there were more than 800 incidents on flights in Spain, up from 549 the year before.
Behaving badly on board brings a maximum charge of €5,000 however this can be more if you cause the flight to divert.
The most unruly passengers were the British, being behind just under 300 incidents last year.
They were followed by the Spanish on 264 and the Germans on 61.
In Malaga airport, the Spanish were behind the most incidents on 23, followed by the Brits on 19.
AESA created a special in-flight and online video last year to warn would be troublemakers of the consequences of behaving badly onboard.
It was shown in the UK and in English due to the country being the biggest source of such travellers.
AESA has now joined forces with the European Aviation Safety Agency to work on new strategies to cut down bad behaviour a board flights.
