The strong sanctions that Avianca is asking for against passengers who have inappropriate behavior

On February 19, at Bogotá's El Dorado International Airport, Avianca refused to let a passenger board the plane who was suspected of being intoxicated . To curb passengers with bad behavior, a bill is being considered in Congress that seeks to protect the rights of workers in the aeronautical sector against disruptive passenger behavior.

This is Bill No. 153 of 2024, whose first debate was recently held in the House of Representatives in the Seventh Commission.

Specifically, Avianca addressed the issue and asked authorities to regulate the behavior allowed when boarding a flight.

In the case of the passenger who was denied boarding by Avianca on February 19, the airline reported that the person was coming from Guayaquil on flight AV8394 and had a connection to Guatemala on flight AV164 . The passenger was apparently drinking alcohol in one of the lounges at El Dorado and when he was in the boarding area he began to behave aggressively.

Given the passenger's behavior, Avianca proceeded to cancel his transportation contract and he was transferred to Colombian Immigration to process his respective inadmissibility.

Following cases such as the one mentioned above, for several years Avianca has requested that the competent authorities strengthen the regulation for these cases, through "rules that impose sanctions that truly discourage this behavior and even prohibit or suspend the possibility of flying for disruptive passengers."

In a statement, Avianca said it "strongly rejects any act of verbal or physical violence. Any disruptive behavior that affects the safety of travelers or interferes with operations is unacceptable and requires strong action to penalize and prevent this type of conduct."

He added that "we will continue to take all legal action within our reach to prosecute any disruptive passenger, both civilly and criminally."

According to Avianca, in 2024 alone, there were 402 cases of disruptive passengers on flights operated by this airline, which represents an increase of 16% compared to 2023, when the figure was 347 cases and, in turn, represented an increase of 118% compared to 2022.

In a case of disruptive passengers, Avianca sued two passengers. During a flight covering the Bogotá-São Paulo route on July 17, 2024, these two passengers caused an argument on board, causing an electronic device to cause significant damage to the aircraft, which forced the flight to return to Bogotá after the crew controlled the situation.

The airline explained that "as a result of the behaviour of these two disruptive passengers, who were then placed at the disposal of the competent authorities, more than 150 people saw their travel plans impacted and the aircraft suffered considerable damage."

Because of this, Avianca filed a lawsuit for more than 90,000 dollars, approximately 372 million pesos, against those responsible. This money is sought to compensate for the damages caused by this situation.

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