The Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) reported a 43% increase in incidents involving difficult and unruly passengers in 2023, with 426 incidents recorded, up from 298 in 2022 to the second most common event reported after bird strikes.
The IAA is collaborating with stakeholders to address unruly passenger behavior, which has become a significant issue, especially following warnings from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency earlier in 2023.
Ryanair’s CEO, Michael O’Leary, recently suggested implementing alcohol limits at airports to combat the rising problem of unruly behaviour, stating a willingness to impose similar restrictions on flights.
Despite the increase in reported incidents, the IAA emphasised that over 98% of the 727,500 Irish flights in 2023 faced no safety occurrences, and the overall aviation environment remained safe, with no fatalities recorded among Irish commercial aircraft operations.
The IAA reported:
- 186 injuries on board
- 186 cases of laser interference with aircraft
- 64 lightning strikes
IAA chief executive, Declan Fitzpatrick, said The civil aviation industry has staged “a remarkable return” to near normal, pre-pandemic levels of activity in 2023 with traffic up 15% annually and movements at airports up 13%.
The overall level of accidents and serious incidents involving both commercial aircraft and private aircraft were lower than in 2022, despite an increased level of activity in all sectors. There was a 35% reduction in the number of commercial airplanes in storage from 119 to 77. The number of aircraft on the Irish register rose by 3% to 722 – an increase of 21.
