Unruly Ryanair Passenger Slapped With 10-Month Prison Sentence

When you transport any and everybody, there are bound to be more than a few bad eggs. Over the past few years, Ryanair started aggressively cracking down on bad behavior, fining multiple disruptive passengers across its network.   

In January 2025, a drunken passenger flying from Dublin (DUB) to Lanzarote (ACE) was hit with a €15,000 lawsuit, while another disrupter was sued for €$3,000 in April. In May, another abusive passenger was fined for a similar amount, with the carrier later announcing that it would enforce mandatory fines starting at €500 for those having to be offloaded as a result of bad behavior.

Ryanair has not let up, and has taken yet another passenger to court. The accused in this case is 61-year-old passenger Stephen Blofield. On November 11, 2025, Blofield started drinking duty free alcohol in the terminal at Krakow (KRK), and continued during the flight to Bristol (BRS).

In the air, officials reported that he was verbally abusive towards passengers and failed to comply with crew instructions. Blofield was taken into police custody at the gate in Bristol.

In the Bristol Crown Court ruling, the passenger was found guilty of the above offenses, and was sentenced to 10 months in prison.

Ryanair’s Jade Kirwan, said:

“We welcome the Bristol Crown Court’s conviction of this unruly passenger whose inexcusable behavior disrupted a flight from Krakow to Bristol in November 2025. This demonstrates just one of the many consequences (including travel bans and offload fines) that passengers who disrupt flights will face as part of Ryanair’s zero tolerance policy. We hope this conviction will further deter disruptive behavior on flights so that both passengers and crew can travel in a comfortable and stress-free environment.”

Credit: Nastya Dulhiier/Unsplash

This is definitely the harshest punishment to date since the start of their no-tolerance campaign, and they will continue fining and potentially having other unruly passengers sent to jail if order is not maintained on board.

It’s good to see an airline taking a stance against this type of behavior, and realistically, most people do not learn unless you hurt their wallets, or restrict their freedom. Even though I don’t ever see this seeing the light of day, airlines could go one step further by developing a shared “no-fly” list as a further reminder to the traveling public that they are expected to conduct themselves when in the airport and traveling on board an aircraft.

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