Over the weekend, I was a passenger on an all-night TAM Brazil flight from FRA to GRU and had to deal with a poorly behaved, drunken passenger in the seat next to mine.

If he was just a happy drunk, it wouldn’t have bothered me. Many times these drunks are normally the nicest people, who just got carried away. The problem was he kept sprawling out across my seat elbowing me in the center of my chest in addition to getting up a few times and falling on me. I spoke with him twice about it in a polite, but firm tone but he got aggressive and started shoving and kicking at me and shouting. So I went back and had a chat with the stewardesses and the supervisor, who told me as the flight was completely full, there was nothing they could do and that it really wasn’t their responsibility to keep drunks from getting on the plane. Finally, I got the supervisor to agree to force the unruly passenger to change seats. They put him next to a big German guy in front who did not appear happy about it (neither were his 2 friends who were also big guys). I don’t know what they said to the drunken old Brazilian businessman, but it seemed to work.

As a very frequent traveler in Latin America, especially to/from/inside Brazil, it’s not uncommon to see drunken, unruly passengers and a few airlines, like TAM, will do very little to prevent them from getting on the plane or controlling their behavior.

I’m assuming there exists regulation in Brazil against letting drunks get on flights (this guy staggered on to the plane visibly drunk, reeking of alcohol and barely able to make it to his seat) and I would like to file a complaint with the relevant regulator. I’m curious if any of you have attempted this and how it went.