Following the announcement made in July surrounding the aviation minister Lord Ahmad’s plans to review the way alcohol is sold at airports, online travel agency sunshine.co.uk polled 3,000 people aged 18 and over from across the UK on the matter.
As many as 19% of Britons said they would be in support of a total ban on alcohol sales in airports and onboard flights.
A total of 63% of people admitted to having become drunk in an airport or on a flight in the past, and 71% felt that no changes should be made with regards to alcohol sales in that environment.
Od the 19%, 55% said their opinion was because a ban on alcohol would “reduce drunken behaviour on flights” and 28% of the total respondents said they had previously witnessed "alcohol-fuelled incidents" at an airport or on a flight.
Seven respondents said they’d been turned away at a boarding gate for being too intoxicated to fly and 9% had been confronted mid-flight by airline staff due to their own alcohol-fuelled behaviour.
71% of the respondents felt that no changes were necessary when it came to the sale of alcohol in airports or on flights, but 8% felt that putting alcohol limits in place for each passenger travelling through the airport or on a flight would be a “good idea”.
Chris Clarkson, managing director of sunshine.co.uk, said: "Personally, I don’t think restrictions on alcohol sales in airports or on flights would make a huge difference in terms of the number of incidents that occur when passengers are intoxicated.
“For one thing, they could just drink heavily before entering the airport and you’d no doubt get more people trying to smuggle alcohol through security, which wouldn’t be ideal for anyone.
"Airline staff at the boarding gates can turn people away if they feel they aren’t fit to fly because of the state they’ve got themselves into through boozing and I think that works perfectly well in terms of policing the issue."
