What do a Conservative peer, a 56-year-old grandmother from Liverpool and a senior British diplomat have in common? They have all been accused of air rage: in other words, of disruptive or violent behaviour in which cabin crew were threatened or assaulted or the flight was forced to divert.
The grandmother, Doris Healy, was given a six-month prison sentence after her outburst in 2000 on a flight from Manchester to Florida, when she became drunkenly abusive and punched a flight attendant three times in the face. Lord Fraser of Carmyllie was arrested in December for disorderly conduct on board a ScotAirways flight from London to Dundee (charges were later dropped), while Colonel Peter Roberts MBE, former British defence attaché in Thailand, was eventually cleared of being drunk on an aircraft after it emerged that his violent behaviour on a flight from Abu Dhabi to London was the result of drinking alcohol while taking an antidepressant.
There are endless tales of passengers picking fights with fellow travellers, attacking flight attendants, storming the cockpit, and even trying to open the emergency door mid-flight. But it is US businessman Gerard Finneran who is often credited with bringing air rage to the world's attention in 1996 after his behaviour in the first class cabin of a United Airlines flight from Buenos Aires to New York. After being refused another glass of wine, Finneran assaulted a flight attendant before pulling down his trousers and defecating on a food trolley. He was later fined US$50,000. We can only imagine his reaction had he been flying in economy.
Air rage offences are still relatively rare compared with the millions of people flying every day, but the number is creeping up. Reliable worldwide figures are difficult to find but in the UK, according to the Civil Aviation Authority, there was one incident per 16,000 flights in 2005-06 compared with one per 27,000 flights in 2002-03. They are also becoming more serious: incidents involving violence rose by 58 per cent in the same period.
What makes some people snap mid-flight? There are plenty of theories: stress from delays, a lack of space on board, the smoking ban, poor-quality cabin air, bad service by cabin crew, anxiety about flying, a feeling of loss of control, and aggressive marketing by airlines. Turning to alcohol for comfort can make it worse. Annie Barber, general manager of Eurofleet (British Airways' short-haul operation), says that BA staff follow a system of graded steps when dealing with disruptive passengers, the first of which involves spotting anyone who is demanding excessive alcohol.
She says: "Depending on the type of behaviour, we award different points. The lowest level might be excessive consumption of alcohol, which might earn you 10 points. This escalates up to 80 points for evidence of serious physical assault on another passenger or crew member."
Passengers receive a written warning once they reach 50 points and, for occasions when someone does become violent, cabin crew are equipped with restraints, tape and "quick cuffs", which they are trained to use. Crew are also given basic training in "breakaway manoeuvres" in case a passenger tries to grab them.
Getting physical should be an absolute last resort, says Philip Baum, editor-in-chief of journal Aviation Security International and managing director of Green Light, a company which offers training in managing disruptive passengers. Baum concentrates on teaching cabin crew how to resolve a situation using their communication skills.
The rules must be simple. "What we teach them, they've got to remember at 35,000ft with someone who might be significantly stronger than they are," he says. The principle is to try to see things from the passenger's point of view. "Never tell an angry passenger to calm down – most angry passengers don't think they have lost their cool. Instead, show empathy by saying something like: 'I can see that you're upset, sir. What would you like me to do?'"
But if a lot of alcohol is involved things become trickier. "Alcohol has a huge role to play in disruptive incidents," says Baum. "It makes people less rational than usual and defusion techniques don't work, so we do have to enable air crew to physically restrain if necessary."
BA and Virgin say they train ground staff to spot early signs of drunken or unruly behaviour, and several years ago BA expanded its warning system to ground staff as well as cabin crew. There have been calls for alcohol to be banned on flights, but BA says it would be too difficult to stop people from taking their own duty-free bottles on board. Professor Graham Lucas, an aviation psychiatrist based at the UK's Priory Hospitals and the University of Surrey, doesn't agree with a ban but suggests breath-testing instead. "Random breathalysing prior to boarding seems justifiable – if pilots and cabin crew are subject to it, why should passengers not be? After all, it is the behaviour of every one of the human beings in that aeroplane which is going to dictate safety."
One of the most disturbing yet fascinating aspects of air rage is that it can be triggered by a very minor event. In one case recorded on aviation security website Air Watch (asi-mag.com), passenger Kevin Brown was arrested in Boston in November 2006 for assaulting an AirTran flight attendant whose only provocation was to wake him for landing.
After taking into account the effects of alcohol or nicotine withdrawal, are some people predisposed to air rage or, given the right circumstances and a really bad day, could we all be just one spilt drink away from going berserk?
Robert Bor, professor of psychology with a specialist interest in aviation at London's Royal Free Hospital, was among the first to ask this question 10 years ago when the term "air rage" was coined. As databases of disruptive incidents grew, psychologists tried to determine which groups of people were most likely to lose control.
Statistically, around 80 per cent of offenders are men (usually aged in their 20s and 30s), which Bor says is related to the link between alcohol and air rage: "Men are more likely to drink in excess, and to act impulsively and threateningly when intoxicated, threatened or when they feel that sense of entitlement in a badly managed customer-service situation."
But they found no other useful predictors: in other words, a 50-year-old woman might be just as likely to cause a fuss as a stag group. So Bor changed tack. "We started to look at individual track records of behaviour to ask: why should a senior executive, or a pop star or an average citizen suddenly revert to infantile and challenging behaviour?" he says.
The link was something called "conduct-related problems", he explains, "which means someone has tended to have a history of behaving in a challenging or threatening way in a given situation. After checking police and even school records and looking at other aspects of their lives it was clear there was a trend of 'people who buck authority'. So it's a predisposing personality in the context of trigger events, such as poor customer service, that causes it to happen'.
"Bad customer service can make people very angry but there are ways of dealing with it, and the way that an [air rage offender] would cope is different from the way the average reader of Business Traveller would cope with it. Most of us can manage our stress and disappointment."
Professor Lucas points out that air rage is not a specific entity – it is the same anger that you might experience anywhere else, but conditions in-flight can channel that anger into more dramatic results than would occur on the ground. "With anger there is a continuum. First someone might feel a bit miffed that someone stood on their toes or stored their luggage selfishly, then there's anger and then there's rage. That continuum applies anywhere when you confine people in a small isolated community, in ridiculously close proximity, and fuel them with alcohol and dehydrate them with coffee. They have surrendered all control even of the air they are breathing, which predisposes them to anxiety and impulsive behaviour."
The injuries and stress suffered by cabin crew after dealing with a seriously disruptive passenger have been well-documented. In one of the worst cases, in 1998 Airtours International flight attendant Fiona Weir was left with permanent scarring after a passenger smashed a bottle in her face (he was later jailed).
Less serious incidents can still be frightening, says Philip Baum of Green Light: "Even if a flight attendant has successfully restrained someone, they've had the trauma of someone saying they want to kill you and crash the plane."
It's not only crew but passengers who can be badly affected. Lucas says that passengers as well as cabin crew experience "acute stress reactions" after a serious air rage incident and, unresolved, these can develop into post-traumatic stress disorder.
One insurance company has even factored this into home insurance for its wealthiest clients. In its "Ultimate Home" policy, Zurich Private Clients now includes any psychiatric and medical expenses of air rage alongside other crimes such as car jacking and road rage. The company says it has adapted "in response to the changing insurance risks faced by wealthy individuals" and admits that its policy is aimed at 'the most affluent people in the UK'.
But how well are the rest of us protected from air rage? In 1999 the government created a new offence of "acting in a disruptive manner", which covers being drunk on an aircraft, smoking in the toilets and interfering with cabin crew. Disruptive passengers may face fines or up to two years in prison, but BALPA says that too often they get away with the fine. "We would like to see more imprisonment," said a spokesperson. "When charges are pressed and it does go to court it's very disappointing for airlines and for cabin crew and pilots as well, when they see them get a slap on the wrist and not a prison sentence."
Bor agrees better deterrents are needed: "Ten years ago, when things became very heated about air rage, the UK carriers agreed a zero-tolerance response, but this policy has not always been followed," he says. "If a famous pop star or personality thinks that the airlines will turn a blind eye then that must lead to copycat behaviour – if X can get away with it then so can Y."
It's all the more important that offenders are seen to be punished given the growing violence of air rage, which perhaps reflects the ever-increasing stresses in air travel – or a general change in society. Baum says: "I think [it] reflects what we all bear witness to on the ground. There is an erosion of discipline in society as a whole and a lack of respect for authority figures and, in the same way that teachers, police and nurses are having to respond to disobedient individuals, so too are flight attendants."
There has been speculation over whether using mobile phones on board – which is starting to become a reality on some airlines – could become another air rage trigger, although no incidents have yet been reported, according to BALPA.
What should you do if you feel you are at risk of boiling over on board? Experts advise making sure you get a good night's sleep before your flight, avoiding alcohol, and preparing yourself in advance for any possible delays or problems (visit flighthealth.org for more advice).
Above all, Bor warns against building your expectations too high – and that can apply particularly to those at the front of the plane. "There tend to be two types of people in business class: those who curl up and don't take any notice of what's going on, and those who are perhaps high up in the frequent flyer programme and expect absolute perfection. If the plane is delayed or their food is not perfect they get upset. They have a certain sense of entitlement, and say, 'I paid so much for my ticket and I expect perfection', which you wouldn't expect in other areas of life."
Top 10 Air Rage incidents
13 JUNE 2002: ANCHORAGE
William Mullis was arrested when his Northwest flight, en route from Detroit to Osaka, had to divert after he allegedly became intoxicated and started touching a flight attendant. He later walked around the plane, kissed some other passengers' babies, swore at people and smoked in the toilets.
20 AUGUST 2002: BRUSSELS
An Air France flight bound for Oslo diverted to Brussels when a naked passenger, French but of Tunisian descent, tried to storm the cockpit.
16 AUGUST 2002: ORLANDO
Victor Mardell drank a bottle of whisky on board an Air 2000 flight from Manchester to Florida before allegedly threatening to kill other passengers. He subsequently tried to choke one female crew member and threw a second against the toilets.
27 MAY 2005: SHETLAND ISLANDS
Sister Ruth Augustus, a 64-year old Franciscan nun, was prevented from boarding two BA flights departing Sumburgh airport for Aberdeen. She became abusive when told she could not take a two-foot statue of the Virgin Mary onto the plane.
10 SEPTEMBER 2005: LONDON
A 48-year old director of Samsung Electronics, identified as So, was arrested on arrival in London on a Korean Air flight. So is alleged to have taken off his socks and washed his feet with a wet towel, then headed to the galley and washed his feet with drinking water. He tried tripping up a flight attendant and sexually harassing female attendants before throwing his socks at the in-flight meal cart.
27 NOVEMBER 2005: Cleveland
Raviram Kishore Malla was charged with sexually accosting a woman on a Southwest Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Cleveland. Allegedly, the woman fell asleep and awoke to find him touching her breast and between her legs.
27 DECEMBER 2005: PORTO SANTO
David Wilson caused the diversion of a Monarch flight to the remote island of Porto Santo. Wilson, who had allegedly sworn at crew when refused a bottle of wine on the flight from Manchester to Tenerife, was left on the runway with his luggage.
12 DECEMBER 2005: BERMUDA
A couple travelling business class on a BA flight from Gatwick to Jamaica were caught having sexual intercourse in the toilets. On being told to return to their seats they attacked the crew, resulting in their being restrained with cuffs.
10 NOVEMBER 2006: LONDON
A drunk passenger assaulted two crew members on an Eva Air flight from Bangkok to London, throwing one over some seats and hitting the other. Another passenger, Mark Black, ran to assist and "gave him a smack on the chin". Black was given a standing ovation from other passengers and a bottle of champagne by the crew.
12 JANUARY 2007: CINCINNATI
On a Delta Airlines flight from Orlando, an 81-year-old man is alleged to have taken a newspaper and pen from a flight attendant's bag to do the crossword. When confronted by the flight attendant, he hit her with the newspaper.
