The airline confirmed is claiming damages of €15,000 (£12,500) against a passenger who forced a flight between Dublin and Lanzarote to land in Porto.

Ryanair warns it will drag 'more' passengers to court in crackdown

by · Birmingham Live

Ryanair has warned it is set to take MORE disruptive passengers to court for bad behaviour on flights. The airline confirmed it is claiming damages of €15,000 (£12,500) against a passenger who forced a flight between Dublin and Lanzarote to land in Porto.

Now Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary has warned they will take more disruptive passengers to court. He told Sky News : "If passengers continue disrupting our flights, we will sue you for the cost of those diversions and those disruptions."

He added: "We're having two or three of these diversions a week." The airline - which is rivalled by Jet2, Easyjet, TUI and more - currently operates 3,500 flights a day, but said that the diversions were "two or three too many."

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Previously calling for a two-drink cap, he added: "We don't care what the number is, but there just needs to be a little bit more common sense about it." A Ryanair spokesperson previously said: "It is time that EU authorities take action to limit the sale of alcohol at airports.

"Airlines, like Ryanair, already restrict and limit the sale of alcohol on board our aircraft, particularly in disruptive passenger cases. However, during flight delays, passengers are consuming excess alcohol at airports without any limit on purchase or consumption."

Aer Lingus boss Padraig O’Ceidigh backed Mr O'Leary and said: "I don't think that alcohol should be sold on board an airplane, quite frankly." Ryanair boss O'Leary also hit back against the plan to expand London Heathrow from the Labour Party government.

Mr O'Leary said he would "never fly from the airport" even if it was free for the airline to do so, citing long turn-around times that would cause a loss of daily flight numbers. Chancellor Rachel Reeves also backed expansions at Luton and Gatwick airports, as well as a "growth corridor" between Oxford and Cambridge, which she claimed could be "Europe's Silicon Valley".