EasyJet flight from Manchester diverted to offload ‘drunken’ passenger

The flight to Iceland stopped off at Edinburgh to remove a disruptive traveller

An easyJet flight diverted to Edinburgh (Flightradar24)

An easyJet flight from Manchester to Keflavik had to be diverted to Edinburgh after a “drunken, aggressive” passenger starting behaving disruptively on board.

Flight EZY1805 on 28 January took off at 4.07pm but touched down in the Scottish capital, where police removed the passenger from the plane, not long into the flight to south-west Iceland.

The man started smoking an e-cigarette and shouting at cabin crew an passengers, reports the MailOnline.

Fellow travellers praised the airline’s handling of the incident. Twitter user “Invisible” wrote on social media: “That escalated quickly! Well done to easyJet though. Zero Tolerance!

“Now waiting at Edinburgh airport after forced landing and ejection of a drunken, aggressive passenger.”

Damien Druce agreed, replying: “I’m on your flight, agree it has been handled extremely well by the easyJet crew. Well done all...”

However, Annie Willo, whose daughter was onboard, questioned why the passenger was permitted to board the flight.

She wrote: “My 19-year-old daughter was on that flight. Scary. Well done easyJet. I do wonder though how someone so obviously drunk can be allowed on in the first place?”

After the disruptive passenger was offloaded, the flight took off from Edinburgh airport at 6.43pm the same day, landing in Keflavik at 8.44pm – and hour and three quarters after its scheduled arrival time.

EasyJet told The Independent that the safety and wellbeing of passengers and crew is always its priority.

The airline said in a statement: “EasyJet can confirm that flight EZY1805 from Manchester to Keflavik was required to divert to Edinburgh and was met by police on arrival due to a passenger behaving disruptively.

“EasyJet’s cabin crew are trained to assess and evaluate all situations and to act quickly and appropriately to ensure that the safety of the flight and other passengers is not compromised at any time.

“Whilst such incidents are rare we take them very seriously and do not tolerate abusive or threatening behaviour onboard.”