All too often, airline employees have to deal with passengers who may have had a little too much to drink. The goal, of course, is to not allow anyone visibly drunk to even board an aircraft. However, if they do manage to board, you ideally want to remove them before takeoff, because an uncooperative passenger becomes much more complicated once a flight takes off.
Along those lines, United Airlines is rolling out a new process for employees to deal with intoxicated passengers, as reported by Live and Let’s Fly. This seems like a sensible development.
In this post:
United’s “huddle process” for intoxicated passengers
As of May 1, 2025, United Airlines is introducing new internal guidelines for dealing with intoxicated passengers prior to flight departure. This is being referred to as the “huddle process,” and here’s how United describes it internally:
“After boarding, if two flight attendants independently observe a customer exhibiting red light behavior(s) the Inflight team will call a mandatory huddle between Inflight, Flight Ops and Airport Operations to facilitate customer removal from the aircraft. This new huddle process is designed to handle situations where red light behaviors may not have been visible during boarding and a customer that appears to be intoxicated makes their way onto an aircraft.”
As you can see, the idea is that if two flight attendants observe a passenger behaving as if they’re drunk, a mandatory meeting will be called between the various teams for getting that passenger removed.
What constitutes “red light behavior?” This includes things like moving in slow motion, needing time to respond, being glassy-eyed, losing train of thought, irrational statements, spilling drinks, walking awkwardly, stumbling or falling, being unable to sit upright, slurred speech, and smelling like alcohol.
Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) state that airlines aren’t allowed to board passengers who appear to be intoxicated, and that if airlines don’t comply with this, it can lead to regulatory enforcement. So obviously airlines want to enforce those rules, not just because of FARs, but also to prevent any inflight disturbances.
This seems like a sensible approach for United to take
United Airlines’ new system for dealing with intoxicated passengers might sound silly or obvious, but I think it’s a logical and important development. While most people working in the airline industry try their best, you sometimes deal with employees who are on a power trip, or you deal with employees who don’t want to deal with a tough situation, so just ignore it.
That’s why having a system like this “huddle process” makes a lot of sense:
- You don’t want a single flight attendant escalating something without first consulting their colleagues and developing a plan between both inflight crew and ground agents
- It’s also helpful to have multiple people come to the same conclusion before taking action, and then having a system in place that requires removal for that passenger
For example, last year, American put a new system in place for removing passengers from flights, which limits the power of any individual employee, and encourages them to find a solution other than removal. This came after an absolutely shocking story, whereby American removed all Black men from a flight, after there was an odor complaint against one Black man.
Obviously this situation is a little different, but the idea is the same — there’s power to having a collaborative, internal process, with published guidelines, before dealing directly with a complicated situation. This is more important than ever before, given how viral stories can go, and since anyone can record one of these incidents.
Bottom line
United Airlines is rolling out new internal guidelines for dealing with intoxicated passengers. With this, if two flight attendants observe a customer exhibiting signs of intoxication, they’ll need to call a mandatory “huddle process,” between flight attendants, flight operations, and airport operations, to facilitate removal from the aircraft.
It’s good to have systems like this in place, so that there’s consistency in enforcement, and a shared responsibility.
What do you make of United’s new process for dealing with intoxicated passengers?
Are they sensible about getting their flight attendants a contract any time soon?! Still the lowest paid flight attendants in the industry at legacies and more! AA, DL, Alaska, Southwest all make more! Wouldn’t be shocked if Hawaiian paid more than United at this point. Every two months they are purchasing or shelling out cash for something new but keep their employees the lowest paid and the CEO gives himself a another huge raise.
Give it a rest.
I hope they take into consideration those of us on our 5th or 6th flight of the trip, crossing 14 time zones and spending 2 nights on planes. You don't have to be drunk or on drugs to be glassy eyed, moving slowly, and slow to respond!
Reminds me of my Swedish days. I would regularly get sold alcohol at Systembolaget when dead drunk (despite the whole point of having an alcohol monopoly being to prevent that), because one of the cashiers in my local store was very chatty so my "happy mood" would come across as just being conversational, but I once got thrown out of metro for being drunk when I was completely sober but tired and I stumbled when the door I was leaning against opened :D
Was flying on Allegiant (I know, but we all gotta get where we gotta go) and a woman was literally throwing up at the gate and could barely stand. I was in the first row so I saw here when she boarded, and not even being aware of "red light behavior" I knew this woman should not be on this plane. I quietly pulled a FA aside and told her what I witnessed and that...
Was flying on Allegiant (I know, but we all gotta get where we gotta go) and a woman was literally throwing up at the gate and could barely stand. I was in the first row so I saw here when she boarded, and not even being aware of "red light behavior" I knew this woman should not be on this plane. I quietly pulled a FA aside and told her what I witnessed and that I was worried she was literally sick. Next thing I know 2 FAs are walking up to her seat and chatting with her, and then boom - she is escorted off the plane. I felt kinda bad, but honestly, she was in no shape to be in the air for 3 1/2 hours.
That was a very good move on your part. Drinking and drinking to THAT excess is both optional and hazardous. Good Call.
No huddling whatsoever on LH773 at BKK to MUC on 21 April this week, when the Captain himself went to the back of Eco class on the A380 to remove a drunk passenger who started drinking his own alcohol right after boarding in BKK. Less than 5min later his suitcase was offloaded and police at the gate, for an ontime departure.
8 people got cut off on my flight recently. It was a simple as the lead FA talking to the rest of the J FAs and saying “I’m going to cut them off, what do you think”. They replied “I agree, they have been XYZ etc…”
It was simple, easy and efficient. And basically what this post describes.
Portable breathalyzers cost less than $100. You would think that with all the money they make selling alcohol, airlines could afford to put one on each plane.
Do they known how to recognise a stroke ? Someone could have had one drink and suffer from an ischemic episode. And this is during boarding.
It's not just a stroke, it could be medication, dementia, etc.
That said, the FAs are looking for a constellation of behaviors, not only one, so it doesn't seem like there should be any rash decisions made.
Well, until the first rash decision that leads to an errant removal, which will bring all the hellfire of public attention and social media to the episode.
I am not speaking as a Physician but, honestly, anybody suffering from a stroke is better off on the ground. Once on the ground it is more likely for someone to notice the situation and get EMT help. Any EMT will be aware.
Someone having a stroke should definitely not be on a plane. They'd want medical assistance as quickly as possible.
Confirmation by another person is good, particularly if the African American nasty United flight attendant wants to throw you out like a recent report. On that report, a passenger asked that FA to stow her cane and purse. That FA tried to get the passenger kicked off the plane.
I’m unclear how her race is relevant to what happened. Or did you just really want to make sure people knew that it was a *BLACK PERSON* doing something bad?
"derek" has a long history of adding RWNJey and racist comments to many stories. "Ignore the troll" seems to be the only option with this one.
I think they mean red flag behavior. Red light behavior is something you see in the Netherlands, for example.
Red light behavious in Holland is when the Dutch vape on planes. Which seems to be the norm.
Well, you wrote this better than I did! ;)
No, you're gorgeous.
Sounds like subjective nonsense to me. For deplaning a passenger, there should be an objective cause. Slurring your speech does not make you unfit to fly. Can’t wait for a tired passenger with a sleep impediment to be deplaned.
Speech impediment
Yes more than one person should make the call because well a small number of flight attendants well are....
If the passenger comes off easily and with no hassle, tell them get a hotel room (on you the passenger) or go home and we will rebook you tomorrow or put on standby.
If the passenger gets argumentative at any point refusal of service and lifetime ban from flying that airline. If the police need to...
Yes more than one person should make the call because well a small number of flight attendants well are....
If the passenger comes off easily and with no hassle, tell them get a hotel room (on you the passenger) or go home and we will rebook you tomorrow or put on standby.
If the passenger gets argumentative at any point refusal of service and lifetime ban from flying that airline. If the police need to get involve and effect an arrest then put on the US No Fly List.
Why adults cannot control their consumption of booze is beyond me. You're an adult, not an 18 year old away from home for the first time.
A lot of drunks pass out quickly once in their seats, and so it may be overkill to dump them off the flight, especially if it is a high revenue guest.
Sometimes less is more.
And some do not. Hence at issue at 30,000 feet
Your plan is valid if the passenger is truly intoxicated. If this is simply a bias incident and the passenger gets upset, well, that can be expected.
I was threatened with arrest by a Delta cabin attendant because I was standing near the lav in the event my wife needed help. I was told to sit, I returned to my seat. When the same attendant passed with the cart, rear to front, I told...
Your plan is valid if the passenger is truly intoxicated. If this is simply a bias incident and the passenger gets upset, well, that can be expected.
I was threatened with arrest by a Delta cabin attendant because I was standing near the lav in the event my wife needed help. I was told to sit, I returned to my seat. When the same attendant passed with the cart, rear to front, I told passengers to watch their elbows. (That is who I am.) The same cabin attendant did not hear what I said and started something, including a threat of arrest. Upon deplaning, my wife, an attorney, told her off in front of the entire crew.
Never Delta.
Hmm. If I’m a flight attendant and I want somebody removed, it should be trivial to call one of my colleagues and back me up, even if the colleague wasn’t even there, on the simple basis that teammates stick up for one another. That’s the whole purpose of a team.
In all my years of flying, I’ve never encountered a power tripping UA or DL flight attendant. I’ve encountered some grumpy ones, but they were merely grouchy and unpleasant, not power tripping. The only power tripping flight attendants I’ve come across were on AA and Frontier. I’ll never be flying Frontier again, they can kiss my equity partner ass.
The problem here is the democratization of air travel because the poor, who could never afford to travel before, tend to get violent when they drink. I don’t even feel safe being near a Spirit Airlines boarding gate….
Spirit Airlines is perfectly acceptable to fly. I haven’t flown them in a while but in college, I took a flight and was assigned to a middle seat in the back. However, my window and aisle seat mates were hot svelte blondes. At the time I was years and years away from equity partnership at a top grossing law firm, or I could’ve proposed a … I’ll leave the rest to your imagination
Arps, you make Walter Mitty sound like Mary Poppins ….
Actually, the rich are more likely to get violent when inebriated, since their wealth inherently gives them power over others and they're not accustomed to being told "no".
See, I too can make up BS generalizations.