Are airport alcohol licensing laws a good idea?

To booze or not to booze? Two journalists go head to head over the government's latest review of whether licensing laws should apply to UK airports

The Home Office are considering applying licensing laws to airports (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

Should airport booze be banned? After the Home Office announced a three-month call for evidence on whether licensing laws should apply to bars, restaurants and shops that are airside at UK airports, two writers argue it out.

No: we can make our own decisions about whether we want to get smashed

As partial as I am to a cool glass of chardonnay, it’s not often I want one before 6am. Especially if I’ve been dragged out of bed just a few hours earlier to make a flight.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t want the right to order one.

That right could soon be under threat: today, the government announced a review into alcohol licensing laws in airports, in light of a number of drunk passengers being disruptive onboard. The current high-street rules (which allow alcohol to be sold after 10am) don’t apply to airside pubs. Which basically means if you’re flying out of Stansted at 6am, you can order a pint at Wetherspoon’s pub The Windmill before you board – or more, given it opens at 3.30am at the weekend.

I’ve got cherished memories from The Windmill. More than once I’ve ordered a pint before most people have had their morning coffee. I’m on holiday, after all. But that was all it was – a pint. Nobody wants to feel hungover by midday and ruin the rest of the day, do they?

JD Wetherspoon, which operates airside pubs at airports across the UK, argues that bringing airport licensing laws in line with high-street ones just means punishing all the other well-behaved passengers that want to have that one pint to celebrate the start of their holiday. Besides, banning booze sales before 10am doesn’t stop passengers getting trolleyed all other hours of the day.

I’m a well-behaved passenger. I know my limits, and I can make my own decisions about whether I want a drink before 10am, thanks very much. Besides, most of the time that glass of white is the only highlight of an early morning budget airline flight anyway.

Cathy Adams

Yes: If it means curbing the excesses of airport booze abusers, I'm in

Whether it’s a 6am mimosa, lunchtime pint or an evening wine, the pre-flight drink at the airport is as much a British institution as Bond, Bake Off or bulldogs.

Having a tipple isn’t the problem. It’s having five and then boarding your flight drunk and disorderly that causes airlines and fellow passengers all manner of grief. That’s why I think introducing licensing laws – which prohibit the sale of alcohol until after 10am – at UK airports could actually be a great idea.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not some puritanical buzz-kill hating on fun. It’s just I’ve spent one too many flights sat behind a group of absolute pissheads, who are shouting, leering and spilling their drinks on me, to feel anything other than positive about the idea that this behaviour might be curbed.

It’s a particular problem on budget airlines to destinations with a party rep – a July flight to Palma in Mallorca with Jet2 nearly broke me last summer – but it can befall any airline and any route. All it takes is one excitable hen do or a group of lads on a mission to make getting from A to B an absolutely miserable experience for the rest of us.

It costs money, too – thousands of pounds, in fact, if a flight has to stop at another airport en route to offload disruptive travellers, such as the two on a Ryanair flight from Alicante to Dublin in January, which was diverted to remove them. Not to mention how annoying that must have been for everyone else on board.

So I would be happy to say so long to a 5am buck’s fizz, if it meant others had to forgo the early morning shots. In fact, I’d even support Ryanair’s idea of a two-drink limit at the airport. It’s a small sacrifice to make to ensure I don’t get a vodka and coke chucked down my legs at 9am while a group of idiots slur the words to an out-of-tune rendition of “Football’s Coming Home”...

Helen Coffey