Gardaí have dealt with more incidents involving disruptive passengers at Dublin Airport so far this year than in all of 2024, the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) has said.
The incidents reported include unruly passengers fighting among themselves; obstructing, abusing or assaulting staff; or refusing to obey safety instructions. Alcohol is said to be a factor in many of the cases, while staff say drug taking is increasingly a feature.
The latest IAA-published Garda statistics, released as part of an aviation industry campaign aimed at addressing disruptive behaviour, show gardaí dealt with 30 such incidents in the opening months of 2025.
This is an 80 per cent increase on the number of reports across all of last year, the IAA said.
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Ryanair says there is an average of three serious incidents for every thousand flights it operates.
In January it filed a civil legal action seeking €15,000 in damages against a passenger who it said caused a flight from Dublin to Lanzarote to be diverted to Porto in April of last year.
It is a sign of the airline’s “zero tolerance” approach to a growing problem, its head of communications Jade Kirwan said on Thursday.
Fórsa, the union that represents the majority of cabin crew and pilots at the two main Irish airlines, said the scale of the increase is all the more remarkable because it comes before the summer season, when most of these incidents occur.
“It picks up as the number of flights increases and people are looking to let their hair down while travelling,” said Fórsa national secretary Katie Morgan.
“We are being told of instances where drugs are being taken on-board, people are doing lines of cocaine or drinking the duty-free they have just bought in the airport,” she said.
She said there have been instances of cabin crew being abused, pushed or spat on for asking people to sit down and behave themselves.
“Sometimes it can be two people fighting with each other but when a staff member goes to intervene it all turns on them,” she said.
The vast majority of passengers behave “properly and respectfully” and are victims of the incidents too, she said.
The fact that staff are highly trained to deal with such incidents means the Garda statistics fail to accurately reflect the scale of the issue of passenger disruptions.
“When the problem persists, though, it’s very serious, the crew have to contain it because it’s not like they can just open the door and throw the people out,” she said.
