Disruptive behaviour on board UK aircraft: April 2003 - March 2004

Background

1. At the request of the Department for Transport, UK airlines have since April 1999 reported incidents of disruptive behaviour on board their aircraft to the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), on a common reporting basis. The CAA has now analysed the data submitted for the year April 2003 to March 2004. This note summarises the outcome. At Annex A is a table comparing key data over the last four years.

Change to reporting scheme

2. In order to minimise the burden on airlines and their crews, to focus attention on those incidents which pose actual or potential risks to crew and passengers, and to ensure consistency in reporting, from 1 June 2002 the Department asked airlines to report only those incidents which were likely to be categorised subsequently by the CAA as being "serious" or "significant". The omission of "other" incidents from June 2001 onwards has resulted in a large reduction in the overall number of incidents reported in comparison to previous years.

3. Linked to this change were some minor changes in the criteria used by the CAA to classify "significant" incidents. The result of this is that a few types of incidents which may previously have been classified as "other" are now classified as "significant". This may account for the apparent increase in "significant" incidents and means that a comparison of the "significant" incidents with previous years may not be entirely accurate. However, the criteria for classifying "serious" incidents, which is entirely the responsibility of the CAA, did not change, and comparisons in this category are therefore valid.

Number of incidents recorded

4. A total of 696 serious and significant incidents were reported in the year to 31 March 2004, an increase from 648 incidents during the previous 12 month period. The CAA classified incidents according to their actual or potential threat to flight and personal safety, taking into account consequences such as aircraft diversions. Of the 696 incidents reported, the CAA categorised some 668 as significant incidents and a further 28 were judged to be serious. When compared with the previous 12 month period, the number of significant incidents has increased by 9% but the number of serious incidents has decreased by 20%.

5. Over the 12 months to 31 March 2004 no case was reported in which disruptive behaviour by a passenger or passengers contributed to an aviation accident, although there were a number of incidents where the description of events referred to violence against cabin crew.

6. These figures continue to show that "air rage" is not a widespread phenomenon, and that the probability of any individual passenger being affected by an incident of disruptive behaviour is extremely low. However there remains a low level of anti-social behaviour, which on occasions escalates into serious incidents which could pose a threat to the safety of the aircraft and/or its occupants. The Department is also conscious that airline employees working on board aircraft are more at risk of harm than the average passenger by virtue of flying more frequently and the nature of their responsibilities.

The offenders

7. Some 78% of incidents involved male passengers, similar to previous years. The largest age group involved in the offences were those offenders in their 30s (accounted for 35% of incidents). Approximately a third of incidents involved people travelling alone. Whereas last year 9 incidents involved groups of 10 or more, this year 14 incidents involved large groups of disruptive passengers. About 1% of incidents occurred in business or first class seating, which is lower than previous years.

The offences

8. The majority of cases reported could be described as general disruptiveness, with verbal abuse either to cabin crew or other passengers occurring in 40% of cases. Between a quarter and a third of all cases involved disobeying airline staff. Smoking restrictions and alcohol were common triggers for unruly or aggressive behaviour, while arguments between passengers often stemmed from domestic disputes, arguments over allocation of seats, or the effect of reclining a seat on the person behind.

9. Among the incidents categorised as significant, by far the most common misbehaviour remained smoking in the aircraft's toilet. There were also many cases of aggressive or abusive behaviour; of repeated refusal to follow instructions, of intoxication, and of passengers exhibiting signs of personality disorder. Violence was involved in 14% of significant incidents.

10. As in the previous year, the 28 incidents categorised by the CAA as being serious included several in which passengers were acting extremely irrationally and strongly suspected of being, or known to be, under the influence of drugs. Many involved excessive consumption of alcohol and varying degrees of violent, abusive or unacceptable behaviour. There were also a number of incidents involving passenger interfering with smoke alarms and causing a fire risk whilst smoking in toilets.

The consequences

11. In the majority of incidents a warning of some sort was given to the offending passenger, and the evidence from the reports suggests that the warning was effective in 43% of cases, and ineffective in 34% of cases (in the remainder, the degree of effectiveness of the warning was not reported).

12. In 16 incidents a passenger had to be physically restrained by handcuffs and/or a strap (compared to 6 in 2002/2003 and 16 in 2001/2002), and in a further 4 incidents other forms of restraint were used. There were 4 occasions on which the aircraft had to divert when in the air (similar level to the previous year) and 7 when the aircraft was forced to discontinue taxi or take-off procedures and return to its stand. The reporting procedure covers the time from embarkation to disembarkation. There were 80 incidents reported where passengers were offloaded (either after boarding, after pushback or at a stopover).

13. Since cabin crew would not necessarily know at the time of reporting an incident whether further action was taken, there are no reliable figures on how many incidents led to arrest or other police action. However, police or security attended 185 incidents involving disruptive behaviour on-board UK aircraft during the 12 months to 31 March 2004 (similar to the previous year).

The contributory factors

14. Excessive consumption of alcohol and smoking were once again the two main contributory factors to disruptive behaviour. Alcohol was identified or suspected as being a contributory cause in 42% of all incidents. Around 29% of the alcohol related incidents involved passengers drinking their own alcohol and 29% involved passengers drinking alcohol before boarding. The data confirms that drinking prior to boarding often has a knock-on effect on behaviour on the aircraft.

15. Smoking, or the desire to smoke, featured in 275 incidents (40% of the total). 82% of these incidents involved smoking in the toilets. The latter category of offence implies a degree of premeditated deception, and poses greater safety risks to the aircraft should a carelessly discarded cigarette result in a fire.

The context

16. The number of recorded incidents must be seen in the context of the number of flights operated by UK carriers, and the number of passengers carried.

17. During the 12-month period covered by the data, UK airlines operated about 1.1 million passenger flights and carried about 110 million passengers. In this period only 28 serious incidents were recorded. This means that the chance of an individual passenger boarding a flight on which a serious incident took place was around 1 in 40,000, and that only 1 in every 4 million passengers was the cause of a serious disruptive incident. Even extending the calculation to cover all reported incidents, the figures would rise only to 1 in 1,600 and 1 in 158,000 ¹ respectively. However, the risks to which individual airline employees may be exposed are substantially greater than those facing passengers.

Department for Transport, May 2004

Annex A - Comparison of key data over 4 years

	2000-01	2001-02	2002-03	2003-04
Total incident reports 2	1250	1055	648	696
Severity
Serious	63	52	35	28
Significant 3	595	528	613	668
Other	592	475	-	-
Context
Number of flights per serious incident	17,000	22,000	36,000	40,000
Number of passengers carried per serious incident	1.7 million	2 million	3 million	4 million
Incident details
Violence involved	139	101	90	106
Violence towards crew	71	49	48	46
Contributory factors
Alcohol involved	533 (43%)	472 (45%)	271 (42%)	290 (42%)
Alcohol - pre-boarding	198	198	121	85
Alcohol - airline	165	92	63	66
Alcohol - own	214	182	88	85
Smoking involved	408 (33%)	385 (36%)	260 (40%)	275 (40%)
Smoking in toilet	350	306	221	226

¹ It should be noted that some incidents involve more than one culprit.

² From June 2002 airlines were asked to report only incidents that were likely to be classed as serious or significant. This impacts the figures for 2002-03 and 2003-04

³ The rise in ‘significant’ incidents for 2002-03 and 2003-04 may be accounted for by a change in the classification of certain types of incidents.