Sharp rise in complaints about anti-social airline passengers

Dutch transport inspectors received as many complaints about plane passengers misbehaving in the first nine months of this year as they did in 2015 in its entirety, the AD said on Monday.

In total, inspectors received 723 complaints about aggressive or anti-social passengers. In almost four out of 10 cases, the complaint centred on smoking, bad behaviour was involved in 35% and drink in 27%.

Most complaints were made about budget ‘holiday’ flights operated by smaller airlines. ‘These attract a different sort of public to, say, a KLM business flight, a spokesman for the cabin staff union VNC said.

The widespread availability of alcohol at airports in also an issue, the paper said.