Disruptive Jet2 passenger ordered to pay for airline’s losses
A judge has ordered a passenger who caused the diversion of a Jet2 flight to pay compensation for the airline’s losses.
Claire Sanderson, 42, from Sunderland, became aggressive and abusive on a flight from Tenerife to Newcastle, forcing the Captain to land the plan at Shannon Airport in Ireland.
The incident happened on New Year’s Day, causing a two-hour delay for the other passengers on board.
Sunderland County Court ordered Sanderson to repay the airline for losses incurred, but the airline could not disclose the amount.
Jet2.com managing director Phil Ward said: "This is the second court ruling in our favour in less than a week, which should send out a strong message to anybody who thinks that they can get away with acting in an unacceptable and aggressive fashion onboard – this behaviour will not be tolerated and we will continue to take action to recover our losses.
"Mrs Sanderson must now accept the consequences of her actions, which caused both inconvenience and distress for other customers as well as our crew. As a family friendly airline carrying millions of holidaymakers, many of whom our families, we will not tolerate this on our flights."
A staunch campaigner against bad behaviour on flights, Jet2 has a zero tolerance stance against disruptive passengers as part of its Onboard Together initiative.
Since launching the initiative, more than 500 disruptive passengers have been refused travel and over 60 of these, including Claire Sanderson, have been given lifetime bans.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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