Leisure airline Jet2.com has banned a disruptive passenger for life after what they have described as his “appalling and violent behaviour” caused an aircraft to be diverted yesterday so that he could be taken into police custody.
The airline, which named the passenger in a statement, said he “acted in a deplorable and violent fashion on the Glasgow to Tenerife flight yesterday, leaving the crew with no choice but to divert to Shannon Airport so that Garda officers in Ireland could offload him and take him into custody.”
The man, understood to be from Motherwell in Scotland, is alleged to have become disruptive and aggressive shortly after take-off, with his behaviour escalating to the point of physically attacking airline staff as well as other customers on the flight.
After diverting to Shannon Airport, Gardaí boarded to offload him and take him into custody, while Jet2.com’s crew provided full statements. The airline has confirmed that it has banned the man for life and is ready to fully assist the authorities with their investigations.
Jet2.com has also confirmed that it will vigorously pursue the man for the recovery of all costs incurred by this diversion, which will be a five-figure sum.
After he was offloaded, a standby aircraft and crew were immediately flown to Shannon Airport to take customers to Tenerife, with Jet2.com apologising to customers for the delay to the start of their well-deserved holidays.
Jet2.com says it’s using this incident to reiterate its commitment to its industry-leading Onboard Together policy. This policy sees Jet2.com take a zero-tolerance stance to the industry-wide issue of disruptive and offensive behaviour.
Phil Ward, Managing Director of Jet2.com, said: “This is one of the worst cases of disruptive passenger behaviour that we have ever witnessed, and we would like to apologise to all colleagues and customers onboard for what they had to experience. It is a disgrace that hardworking customers, families and colleagues should be subjected to such appalling behaviour and we will vigorously pursue (him) for all the costs that we incurred as a result of this diversion, as well as banning him for life.”
He added: “We would also like to thank customers and colleagues who helped deal with (him) onboard, as well as Garda for their assistance in offloading him. We will support them fully with their investigations and (he) should be prepared to face severe consequences for his actions. This event should act as a stark warning to anyone who thinks that it might be acceptable to behave in such an unacceptable manner onboard one of our flights. Thankfully, the overwhelming majority of customers enjoy their flights and continue to have a lovely holiday, and we will continue to work hard to provide our VIP customer service as always.”