People Complain About Spirit Passengers. British Ryanair Holidaymakers Might Have Them Beat

I’ve been fortunate to fly some of the world’s best First Class products and lots of low-cost carriers. I am a fan of Spirit Airlines and hold Gold status there. We got to Manchester Airport (MAN) from Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH) (review here) and then flew from Manchester Airport (MAN) to Corfu International Airport “Ioannis Kapodistrias” (CFU) on Ryanair. It was quite the dichotomy. The low-cost airline is known for its controversial CEO, the occasional on-board fight, and flights that easily connect smaller cities (like these two). Spirit passengers are the butts of lots of jokes, but I think the British holidaymakers headed for Greece today might have had them beat by a longshot.

Boarding was easy and the plane filled with lots of severe British accents that I struggled to fully understand (I was in the UK and am usually good with accents, but some of these were tough). What I did not expect was the shouting, hollering, banter, excessive drinking, passengers just standing in the galley, and a neverending line of people waiting for the lavatory.

The couple seated behind me had no less than eight drinks each on a three-hour flight. They kept ringing their call button and berating the very kind, Italian purser to bring them more ice, more Bacardi, and “none of that s#$%ty Coke Zero.” We were seated in 1A, 1B (an empty middle seat I purchased), and 1C all in the bulkhead. The gentleman in 2B blurted out the following gems:

• “We’re going to crash.”
• “We’ll end up like the Titanic.”
• “This plane is going down.”
• “Say goodbye, we’re crashing.”

His wife giggled, cackled, and also shouted at other passengers. I learned a lot about the area surrounding Manchester, where things are bad, and that the woman seated across in 2E was a “stupid c&^t” because of where she lived. They bantered back and forth and discovered they were on the same Apple Vacation package.

The three-hour long flight was filled with nonstop shouting, drinking, chanting, and noises I don’t even know how to describe. The flight attendant asked them to quiet down repeatedly, but all they could say was “snitches get stitches.”

The swearing, drunken antics, and most of all shouting about crashing were wholly inappropriate. My head is still pounding from all of the noise.  And, this wasn’t coming from the 20-somethings headed to a stag party dressed as a pumpkin, in a half-top, and in a vest sans shirt. They were well behaved.

Anthony’s Take: A mandatory Ryanair flight will be sentenced to the next person who has something to say about American passengers and their behavior. These British passengers were totally out of control. I don’t have tons of experience flying to holiday destinations on Ryanair from the UK. Is this par for the course?

(Featured Image Credit: VladOrlov via iStockPhoto.)