A loophole that allows airports to bypass alcohol licensing laws which ban 24-hour drinking will be reassessed, the Home Office has confirmed.

It means early morning pre-flight tipples could become a thing of the past.

A House of Lords review looked into bringing 24-hour drinking at airports to an end last year. Now our sister site The M.E.N. reports that the Home Office is planning to issue a ‘call for evidence’ to ‘assess the impact of implementing the Licensing Act on airside premises on reducing alcohol related disorder’.

If it is found there is enough supporting evidence, the Licensing Act 2003 could be extended to cover alcohol being sold to passengers before they board flights.

Manchester Airport

This would give councils the power to license and inspect bars, pubs and restaurants inside airports. And they could also limit the hours alcohol is served.

The M.E.N. spent a day with the airport police in May and saw large groups of hens and stags drinking at 7am in bars around the terminals.

Figures show incidents of air rage and disorder at Manchester Airport have more than doubled in the last three years.

Police boarded aircraft 159 times in 2016, 110 times in 2015, and 73 times in 2014, with more of half the incidents in 2016 involving alcohol or drugs.

A total of 116 people were stopped from boarding a plane at the airport in 2016, with 52 people being arrested.

Incidents reported on by the M.E.N include mid-air fights, racist abuse, assaults on cabin crew and pilots, and broken windows.

A Home Office spokesman said: “Hundreds of millions of passengers travel through the UK’s airports and they should be able to enjoy their holidays without having their flight disrupted by a small minority of people.

“There are already tough penalties in place for drunkenness on an aircraft – you can be imprisoned for up to two years or given an unlimited fine. Pilots also have the power to issue the removal passengers from the plane if they are drunk and the safety of the aircraft or its passengers is threatened.”

Phil Ward, managing director of Jet2.com, described amending the Licensing Act as a ‘critical step’ to protect crew and passengers from alcohol-related disruptive behaviour.

He added: “As a family-friendly airline, flying millions of people on holiday, we will not tolerate a small minority of disruptive passengers spoiling the flight for the rest of those on board, so we believe this step would have a very positive impact.

“We are encouraged that the Home Office has committed to issuing a call for evidence on this, and we look forward to working with them and the rest of industry to find a solution to this growing problem.”

What Manchester Airport says

A spokesman for Manchester Airport said: “We are clear that disruptive behaviour, whether fuelled by alcohol or otherwise, is completely unacceptable at Manchester Airport.

“That is why we have worked with the police and our retail and airline partners to introduce a range of measures to monitor and tackle the conduct of individuals who have the potential to spoil the experience of others.

“This includes being committed to the guidance set by the UK Aviation Industry Code of Practice on Disruptive Passengers, which we became signatories of in July 2016.

“Thankfully, instances of anti-social behaviour are rare and involve only a small number of our 27.7 million passengers and affect a tiny proportion of the 500-plus flights we handle each day.

“However, examples from the past year show clearly that the whole of our industry will not accept anti-social behaviour at any stage of a journey and that we will collectively take action to ensure the actions of a minority do not impact the experience of the majority.

“Passengers who behave in a disruptive manner fail to behave face arrest or being prevented from flying.”