Everyone agrees drunk plane passengers are a problem. Nobody agrees on how to fix it

Passengers on a domestic flight prepare for meal service. Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times/Getty Images

Writer Amelia Mularz was on a Chicago-to-Los Angeles redeye earlier this year when a very drunk passenger plopped into the seat next to hers.

As the plane pulled back from the gate, the man ran to the bathroom and, she says, threw up so much that a cleaning crew had to be called in from the airport. The passenger was then removed from the flight and the plane took off an hour late.

But Mularz is far from being the only passenger who has been a first-hand witness to bad plane behavior.

When University of Texas at Dallas criminology professor Lynne M. Vieraitis analyzed years’ worth of in-flight passenger incident reports, she found one common theme.

“Alcohol. Alcohol. Alcohol.”

Vi