London, Jun 8 (Daily Mail) : Thomson Airways flight from Manchester forced to divert to Bulgaria after drunk passenger lit a cigarette in the toilet and had to be restrained by staff

A Thomson Airways plane carrying nearly 200 British holidaymakers to a Greek island was forced to divert to Bulgaria after a passenger got so drunk and aggressive he had to be restrained by crew.

Flight TOM2570 was heading from Manchester to Heraklion, a seaside city on the island of Crete, when the man lit a cigarette in a cabin toilet and became disruptive.

It was the second time in as many days an intoxicated and unruly traveller forced a British holiday jet to land in the Bulgarian capital of Sofia.

Officials said the man was drinking alcohol he brought on board with him at Manchester Airport, where the plane had left with 180 passengers on board on Friday.

As his behaviour deteriorated he became aggressive and abusive to the crew, forcing the captain to radio to ask police to meet the plane in Heraklion.

However, the man continued to cause problems on board, and the flight crew felt they had no choice but to divert to Sofia, where the man was removed from the plane and taken into police custody.

The plane left Sofia and was more than two hours behind schedule when it arrived on the Mediterranean island.
A Thomson spokeswoman said: ‘Thomson Airways would like to apologise for any inconvenience experienced by passengers on board flight TOM2570 from Manchester to Heraklion, which diverted to Bulgaria due to a customer incident on board.
‘We operate a zero-tolerance policy in relation to any disruptive behaviour. The passenger in question was removed from the aircraft and met by police.

‘The flight departed within two hours to ensure the other customers could get away on their holiday as soon as possible.’

She added: ‘Customer safety is our priority at all times and we would like to reassure passengers that incidents of this nature are extremely rare.’

The incident occurred a day after a Monarch Airlines flight from Birmingham to Dalaman, Turkey was forced to land in Sofia due to six passengers who were accused of drinking booze they brought on board, smoking in the toilets and grabbing female staff.

The airline has banned the passengers for life, taking a tough stance on unruly behaviour that causes disruption for other travellers and staff.

British budget airline Jet2 recently banned two passengers for life – one for exposing himself in front of passengers and crew, and another whose drunken antics forced a holiday flight to divert to Toulouse, France.