It’s 6pm and the Lion & Antelope is rammed. Every seat is taken, every table filled with booze, and every bartender serves a never-ending stream of punters eager for a teatime pint – or three.

But this isn’t your everyday pub: this is Manchester airport’s Terminal 3 in August, the pre-drinking place to be for holidaymakers heading to Alicante, Ibiza, Malaga, Dublin and Faro. For Kay Ashley, 19, the departure lounge is a “great place to start” her night out in Ibiza.

“When you get there, you’ve drank; you’re ready to go to your hotel, put your bags down, get ready and go out,” she said, ahead of a late-night Ryanair flight to the Balearic party island.

Ashley is among millions of passengers who enjoy a pre-flight tipple on their summer getaway – and many of them will be filling bars in terminals this bank holiday. But this month airlines called time on irresponsible drinking after the BBC’s Panorama showed hair-raising footage of drunken debauchery at 35,000ft.

Ryanair, Europe’s biggest short-haul airline, called on airports to limit alcohol sales to two drinks per person and ban drinking in terminals before 10am. It followed a similar move by rival Jet2, which last year stopped serving alcohol on early-morning flights.

Ryanair’s tough stance came as figures showed a significant rise in arrests for alcohol-related unruliness in the air. Police made 387 arrests at airports and on planes last year, the BBC found, up from 255 in 2015-16. Meanwhile the Civil Aviation Authority – the industry regulator – reported a 600% increase in disruptive passenger incidents in the UK between 2012 and 2016, mostly alcohol-related.

Beleaguered cabin crew members also voiced concerns, saying some flights to Ibiza, Alicante and Palma had turned into “nightclubs in the sky”. A survey by trade union Unite of more than 4,000 cabin crew workers found that 87% had witnessed drunken passengers. More than half said they had been verbally abused by inebriated passengers and more than a quarter said they had seen behaviour that threatened flight safety.

If the findings raised concerns about alcohol-related trouble in the sky, it was little in evidence on a weekday night this month at the Lion & Antelope, where thirsty punters could buy supersize cocktail pitchers called Vodbulls – a potent mix of Absolut Vodka and Red Bull – alongside beers, wines, shots and spirits.

Ashley, from north Wales, said Ryanair’s proposed crackdown would “ruin the holiday” and her friends vowed to boycott the airline if it was introduced. “It’s bollocks,” said Nicola Percy, 19. “We’re trying to go on a night out and we can only have two drinks. Unless you’re being rowdy there’s no need [for a crackdown].”

A duty free shop at Manchester airport Terminal 3. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

Concerns were also raised this month over the sale of duty-free alcohol. Figures showed that more than half of all disturbances involved alcohol bought and brought on to planes before departure. A code of conduct introduced last year in an attempt to combat antisocial behaviour by passengers appears to be having little effect, according to Unite’s survey of cabin crew. Airlines have urged ministers to make it a criminal offence for passengers to drink any alcohol not bought on board the aircraft.

How much airports are profiting from alcohol sales, as Ryanair claims, is debatable. The call for a crackdown will be noted with some cynicism at airports who have long seen Ryanair asencouraging more passenger expenditure aboard their planes rather than in shops or restaurants on the ground.



The harder bargains that the big low-cost carriers have struck on landing charges – a fee levied per passenger – have made competing airports search ever harder for alternative income. Airports need to generate more income from parking or retail in order to hold down landing charges – a fee levied per passenger – and stop airlines from going elsewhere.

An airport insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said: “If you stop airports selling alcohol then they’ve got to make that back somewhere else. We have teams of people asking passengers what they want: they consistently say we want more shops, better restaurants. Those bars are certainly busy all the time. It’s what people want.”

A well-lubricated passenger might conceivably be freer-spending too. At Manchester airport, about 55% of the £395m it took in revenues last year came from landing charges, leaving it to make about £7.50 per passenger from elsewhere, roughly an even split between car parking and its shops and restaurants. How much booze contributes isn’t made public. Airport bars are exempt from the 2003 Licensing Act, meaning they can open at whatever hours they please.

Measures now put in place include airport-wide warnings at Glasgow to bars and airline staff about any passengers identified as over-indulging. Police at Manchester airport employ a football-style yellow and red card scheme warning airline gate staff of potential miscreants, while posters abound warning passengers that drunkenness may mean they are not allowed on board. .

In Manchester airport’s duty-free lounge, large signs advertised 20% off the high-street price of 1l bottles of gins, vodka, whisky and Jagermeister. Two A5-size notices advised passengers not to open duty-free alcohol before departure but they were vastly outnumbered by posters advertising “great offers” on alcohol. At the checkout, one World Duty Free employee said: “Erm, not sure”, when asked whether passengers they were allowed to drink duty-free alcohol on board. A colleague then advised one passenger: “I don’t think you can any more” and produced a yellow notice that read: “Passengers are advised not to open/consume alcoholic drinks purchased in duty-free before departure.”

World Duty Free said it trained staff on procedures on selling alcohol. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo

A WDF spokesperson said: “World Duty Free has been, and continues to be, proactive in developing and implementing initiatives to address the social issue of disruptive passenger behaviour. Our retail staff are trained on procedures to follow when selling alcohol products and retrained every three months to ensure they are clear on these policies.”

Ryanair announced this month that passengers flying from Manchester and Glasgow Prestwick to Alicante and Ibiza were no longer permitted to take duty-free alcohol on board, believed to be the first ban of its kind by an airline in Britain. But on Ryanair’s 8.10pm flight to Ibiza from Manchester on a weekday evening this month, the rule did not appear to be strictly enforced. A Guardian reporter was allowed on board with four alcohol miniatures despite being searched at the departure gate, while a number of other passengers with hand luggage were let on the plane without searches.

Sarah Blake, who was flying to Ibiza to celebrate her friend’s 50th birthday, said the warnings about taking alcohol on board were futile: “They didn’t even check my bag. Imagine if they searched everyone’s bag, it would take another two hours to board.”



Kenny Jacobs, Ryanair’s chief marketing officer, said: “This regulation is enforced on our behalf by security contractors at Manchester airport and those who are attempting to conceal alcohol may be denied travel and we have asked them to ensure our policies are enforced correctly.”

In the Lion & Antelope, Faye Pritchard, 25, said her friends’ approach to airports was simple: “Get as many in as you can.”

Her friend, Daniel Ferguson, 24, said a limit on drinks per passenger would simply encourage people to smuggle duty-free alcohol on board. “Think how many [alcohol-related] incidents there are compared with how many people come through an airport in a day,” he said.

“For a couple of idiots who can’t handle their ale, I don’t think you should punish the whole airport.”­