Dear Editor,

In the week following my letter to your newspaper (‘Passengers frequently refuse to obey the instructions of flight attendants’ 18.7.08) with my comments on the Delta Airline incident on July 4, 2008, a more serious happening occurred over Austria in similar circumstances.

The details of the behaviour of the two women on Flight XL237 from Kos to Manchester which was available on the BBC website of July 26, 2008 should make interesting reading when put alongside my quotation and views expressed in my letter.

The two women were accused of drinking heavily, being inebriated and abusive; threatening physical harm to a flight attendant; smoking in the aircraft toilet; trying to open a cabin door in flight; and bringing on board and drinking their own alcohol. The crew took measures to restrain the two disorderly women in their seats, and disembark and deliver them to the competent authorities at an unscheduled stop at Frankfurt.

In the more simple and straightforward case of the Delta flight it has been publicized that after three weeks an investigation has not yet been completed by the Civil Aviation Department in Guyana.

Can we not get one credible witness among the first-class passengers on the Delta flight to give a categorical statement? Or do they require witness protection? Do we in this fair land of ours expect witnesses to the more dastardly and heinous crimes to come forward? I shudder to think of the values which our young generation are being taught. Quo vadis, Guyana?

I wish to state that in the not too distant future the Council of the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO) will be required to deliberate on the subject of airline passengers’ access while in flight to their duty-free liquor purchases. Of course, a fierce lobby from and opposition by the International Duty Free multibillion dollar business enterprise can be expected to any restriction of purchases.

Yours faithfully,
Aubrey Alexander
Retired Deputy Director
Civil Aviation