Mid-Flight ‘Relief’ Forces Emergency Landing—Police Scramble To Meet Plane On Arrival

A Ryanair flight from East Midlands, UK, to Tenerife was forced to make an expedited landing on November 4 when an unruly passenger behavior urinated in the cabin aisle. Flight FR3152’s 4.5 hour journey went off the rails as several passengers became disruptive – and one became messy.

The plane was given a direct routing into Tenerife and police met the aircraft to remove the offending passengers from the aircraft.

Tenerife flights often go off the rails over alcohol, and this is doubly so when operated by Ryanair. Cheap flights from the U.K. to European holiday destinations are notorious for out of control, badly-behaved passengers. One Ryanair flight out of Tenerife once had a passenger threaten a bomb when a flight attendant refused to serve him beer.

And while this “ep-pee-sode” may ultimately lead to charges, it’s unlikely that the main will be forced to compensate Ryanair for cleaning costs. Although Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary once proposed charging passengers to use the bathroom on flights, there is no published fee for what happened here.

And it happens enough that you’d expect them to be more proactive about that! In July, an American Airlines first class passenger was caught urinating and ‘flicking the bean’ after downing 9 jack and cokes. A man urinated on a seatmate during an American Airlines flight to Delhi back in March. And in one of my favorite cases, an American Airlines passenger had to be told that there was a lavatory on board and not to just use the seat and that man claimed not to be drunk ‘just chewing gum’. Meanwhile, British Airways had to tell staff to stop urinating in their cargo holds.

About Gary Leff

Gary Leff is one of the foremost experts in the field of miles, points, and frequent business travel - a topic he has covered since 2002. Co-founder of frequent flyer community InsideFlyer.com, emcee of the Freddie Awards, and named one of the "World's Top Travel Experts" by Conde' Nast Traveler (2010-Present) Gary has been a guest on most major news media, profiled in several top print publications, and published broadly on the topic of consumer loyalty. More About Gary »

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Comments

  1. Trash fares bring trashy flyers. 4.5 hours on a Ryanair flight? I’d stay home if that’s all I could afford to fly.

  2. @George N. Romney

    How fortunate you are that you can afford to fly on another airline. No doubt, should you display your condescending attitude in certain places, others would refuse to fly with you. Noblesse oblige is probably not in your vocabulary.

  3. Like some American elections, low cost airlines do tend to bring out a certain low class and low education element of society. Would we could have had police meet that flight!

  4. Vazir Mukhtar: You’re the reason why Aloha Snackbars like you are profiled in US airports, and for good reason. If high fares keep me away from people like you, all the better. Yes, it’s a class thing. I have class, you don’t.

  5. Very little information on what exactly happened. There could have been locked bathrooms or other mitigating circumstances. Maybe it was a dog.

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