Catherine Field: Europe Correspondent on Ryanair's request to enforce a two drink maximum before flights

There’s a push to limit the amount of alcohol international passengers can drink before flights. 

Budget airline Ryanair is asking European aviation authorities to enforce a two drink maximum. 

Europe correspondent Catherine Field says passengers are limited in the amount of duty-free alcohol they can buy. 

The airline argues that should apply to bars too. 

Ryanair says changing the rules would create a safer experience for passengers, with improvements to behaviour. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News Talks. It'd be
follow this and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
And it's to France with Catherine Field.

Speaker 3 (00:18):
Good morning, Good morning Tim.

Speaker 2 (00:21):
Now, I'm not so sure if the word calm is
a word I've ever i'd ever applied to French politics.
But where we are on the calm scale at the.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
Moment, Oh, I think we're a long way from the calm.
I think we're all almost sort on the edge of
our seats wondering if we're going to be looking over
into the avest that by within the next twenty four
hours to And that's because we're going to have yet again.
The new Prime Minister has been in office only for
a month, presenting the twenty twenty five budget to Parliament. Yeah,

(00:52):
you heard it right, twenty twenty five. We're already a
couple of weeks into twenty twenty five, they still don't
have a budget. The news is going to be that
he wants to make about fifty billion euros. It's about
ninety billion New Zealand dollars savings on the state budge.
So these savings are going to come, they say, from
across the board, no one is going to be spared

(01:15):
and the people who will be most affected probably will
be wealthier people and larger companies will be asked to
pay higher taxes. Now, of course, the question is the
markets have already been spooked by this government. Sure, this
is the third prime minister in as many months, ratings

(01:36):
agencies saying that it's not looking good. France has still
got a deficit of around six percent of its GDP,
so that none of that is good. And of course,
you know, like most electorates anywhere to people don't want
to be making savings at the moment because they're already
having enough time making ends meet. So the trouble is

(01:56):
again the government doesn't have a majority in parliament, so
if none of the opposition parties like the budget, they
can of course bring this government down by having a
vote of no confidence.

Speaker 2 (02:09):
The budgeteer line. Ryanair has asked European aviation authorities to
limit passengers to just two alcoholic drinks each before each flight.

Speaker 3 (02:20):
Years now, this is something that of course Ryanair has
asked for this before, but now they're coming actually at
the European authorities and saying, look, you have to do something.
It's just happening too often that people are getting on
board these flights, they're having a lot of drink before
they get on. Of course, Ryanair is one of the
big European budget air lines. They fly to several hundred

(02:44):
destinations around France, Spain, Italy, Germany. These are people going
on holiday who have paid very little for their tickets,
and what Ryanair is saying is, look, you limit people
to the amount of duty free booze they can buy, well,
let's start limiting them with the amount of alcohol that
they're buying at the bar before they get on. They

(03:06):
say that this will be safer and better for passengers,
behavior will be better. They also saying that if they
do have instances which has happened quite a lot recently
where they've had to divert the flight because passengers have
been drunk, they're cause disturbans. They're now starting to sue
those passengers to recover some of the costs, and just

(03:28):
a couple of hours ago, Ryanair announced that it was
suing a passenger for some twenty seven thousand New Zealand dollors,
which was what it costs the airline to redirect to
another airline. And they say it's got to stop. And
if they don't stop it before they get on, yeah,
it's too dangerous.

Speaker 2 (03:44):
And just quickly you've got the Vendid Globe, the yacht
race sailing into western France.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, I mean this is the big Rue turn. This
is the Vondi Globe. It's what it was. Forty sailers
set off back in November. They sail around the world.
There's not that many rules involved, other than yet to
do it on your own. You can't stop and no
one can assist you. Forty five thousand kilometers. They'd taken
the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific oceans. So this is a

(04:12):
big race. It's expected that this forty year old Charlie Dullen,
a French mariner, he's going to win, which could be
a bittersweet if he makes it of winning this perhaps
because he came across the line first last year, but
the victory was taken away from him because he was
given a time bonus to the guy who came second.

(04:33):
So he still wakes up at night having nightmares about it.

Speaker 2 (04:37):
Are great to talk to you, Catherine, That is Catherine
Field in France.

Speaker 1 (04:41):
For more from news talks, he'd be listen live on
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