Jet2.com has reaffirmed its commitment to tackling disruptive and abusive behaviour on flights after obtaining successful court judgments against two passengers to recover losses incurred as a result of their unacceptable onboard behaviour.
Sunderland County Court has ordered Claire Sanderson to compensate Jet2.com for losses incurred as a result of having to divert its Tenerife-Newcastle flight to Shannon Airport on New Year’s Day this year, after she was aggressive and abusive onboard the flight.
Mrs Sanderson, from Sunderland, was abusive to crew and became so disruptive and aggressive as the flight progressed that the Captain felt he had no choice but to divert the aircraft to Shannon Airport. To protect the safety of everyone onboard she was offloaded and handed over to the local police. The customers then continued to Newcastle following a two-hour delay.
This latest court ruling is the second time in a week that Jet2.com has obtained a successful judgment, following a similar decision by the County Court in Carlisle, which ordered passenger Charles Thompson, from Dalkeith in Midlothian, to compensate the airline for losses incurred as a result of a delay caused by his disruptive and drunken behaviour onboard a flight from Edinburgh to Ibiza last year.
Phil Ward, Managing Director, Jet2.com said: “The second court ruling in our favour in such a short space of time should send out a strong message to anybody who thinks that they can get away with acting in an unacceptable and aggressive fashion onboard – this behaviour will not be tolerated and we will continue to take action to recover our losses.
“Mrs Sanderson must now accept the consequences of her actions, which caused both inconvenience and distress for other customers as well as our crew. As a family-friendly airline carrying millions of holidaymakers, many of whom are families, we simply will not tolerate this on our flights.”
Jet2.com’s Onboard Together initiative commits the airline to a zero tolerance stance against disruptive passenger behaviour, including banning the sale of alcohol onboard all flights before 08.00BST. This has been well received by crew and customers and the airline has called on airports to adopt the same rule, as well as introducing tamper proof bags for the sale of alcohol at duty free shops. Since launching, more than 500 disruptive passengers have been refused travel and over 60 of these, including Claire Sanderson, have been given lifetime bans.
