extramileage

Ran across yet another article in Gulf News of a drunken pax running amok on an EK flight and ending up in jail (he was a sailor! cue song!).

The story itself is uninteresting but it's the first time I see a mention of a "Security Officer" being on board.

http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/uae/co...ight-1.1405207

w00t

Except for Baghdad flights, there are never "security officers" on board. Weird why they mention otherwise on the website.

edy4eva

I always assumed they'd be at least an officer on board. This is standard op among many M.E. carriers
The attire of such undercover employee is typical, once you know what it is it becomes easy to spot them. It's like they ask them to use the same wardrobe.

BTW

eternaltransit

Re: the air hostess as a government employee - it just illustrates the relatively shaky (and by this I mean vaguely worded and so interpreted on a case by case basis) legal framework that visitors to some parts of the world face - without making a value judgement about the merits of the various ways that countries and societies are governed of course (this isn't OMNI after all!), the message is clearly: just behave and don't cause trouble otherwise ways will be found to make an example of you. The argument here of course being, EK is owned ultimately by the government of Dubai and therefore all of its employees are government employees, although it operates on a commercial basis. And then there's the thing that even being drunk on board a UAE registered plane is an offence (the offence of drinking: even if you started in Singapore) - if you get to a court. Even though EK offer you alcohol...

Havoc10G

Most airlines take a dim view of this type of behaviour and tend to have a rather large "welcoming committee" at the destination regardless of the ownership of the airline!

badgersfly

What is the world coming to when you aren't allowed to have a few drinks, grope a few air hostesses, and try to fly a plane yourself???

m3red

This is my understanding too, just Iraq flights

eternaltransit

There should be more welcoming committees with some of the behaviour I've witnessed on board

Havoc10G

I remember an a380 flight a while ago when a guy got so drunk the pilot switched on the seatbelt sign to get him to sit down. Once he switched it off, still mid flight, the guy stood up, grabbed his bag and stood infront of the exit door only to be told the flight was still in mid air!!

father_ted

There was a welcoming committee for one of my EK flights. Destination GLA. Standard procedure seems to be to request passengers to stay seated while some large gentlemen of the law remove the offender.

In-flight signs that something like this is going on back in Y:
1. the Purser is summoned
2. the seatbelt sign goes on with no turbulence
3. the Captain makes his way out

All very professionally dealt with by EK, I am sure they are unfortunately well used to it. Whether the Captain's attendance is standard or not I don't know, but I seem to remember it being debated on FT before.

On arrival the police seemed to be waiting a while for something or someone before boarding, and some of us had tight connections. After a brief negotiation J and F were allowed disembark (offenders were in Y it seems).