My partner and I recently visited Portugal to celebrate our friend’s birthday. After a wonderful few days in Lisbon, everything was tarnished by the flight home.
I posted this on TAP Portugal’s Facebook page:
There was a drunk man on our flight back to London from Lisbon. As we boarded the plane, he was already shouting and laughing at his own ramblings. The 2 hour 40 minutes flight was littered with loud singing that echoed through the aircraft, stamping his feet, shouting and slurs. Trying to engage nearby passengers with his often offensive language who smiled and nodded, afraid of upsetting this seemingly unstable individual. A few nervous flyers were becoming increasingly aggitated with him, which was pointed out by one voice, but that just prompted him to talk about how there was probably a bomb on the plane and that we were all going to die.
Throughout the entire flight, no one stopped him, silenced him and worst of all, the flight crew kept feeding him beers and fuelling his actions.
I was with my fiancé and both of us wore headphones for most of the journey to drown him out, but this wasn’t possible during landing procedure. That’s when he moved his attention to me and taunted me with gay slurs. And as the plane landed and the seat belt sign turned off, that was when I snapped. I am not a violent man but I am good with words. As terrified as I felt; trying to control my shaking voice and hands, I stood up to the bully. I told him how offensive he had been, how he had upset so many people and what a horrible human being he was. He threatened me with violence of course, but I stood my ground. I made him apologise to all the people he had offended and those terrified by his words and actions which he did and ended by shaking my hand.
It is never easy standing up to bullies and most of the time we stay silent, but at some point, someone has to take a stand.
I do believe that the TAP crew should not have let him on the flight in the first instance but after making that mistake, should definitely not have served him any more alcohol.
I left the plane a little shaken and as I was collecting the luggage, a man came over to me to shake my hand and congratulate me for standing up to him. He also informed me that the drunk man had wet himself after leaving the aircraft due to the amount of alcohol he had consumed.
I really do hope TAP take this complaint seriously. The man was obviously too intoxicated to fly and upset everyone with hearing range – which was most of the plane.
I have contacted the company through their complaints department and will update you with their response.