IN the same week that the EgyptAir flight disappeared into the Mediterranean, it’s unbelievable that three days later a group of passengers behaved so badly during a flight that they forced a plane to be diverted.

On Saturday, EasyJet had to redirect a flight from Glasgow to Palma to Toulouse because of the “disruptive behaviour of a group of passengers”.

There, they were removed from the flight.

Hmmm. I wonder whether this behaviour had anything at all to do with alcohol. What else do you think might have caused a group of people to endanger the lives of everyone on board, including themselves, on an aeroplane when it’s mid-air and at its most vulnerable?

Having flown twice in the past week, to and from Naples, I am still astonished that airports and airlines allow passengers to get drunk before and during flights.

They go to great lengths to make flights secure – strict passport checks, body scanners, small plastic bottles of shampoo, toothpaste and facial cleanser stored in a clear plastic bag – yet at the same time they provide pubs and bars in the airport so people can get smashed before they even enter a plane – and then they serve up more alcohol on board.

Profit is the obvious motive, and when an incident like the EasyJet plane diversion occurs, there are penalties for the perpetrators and none for the facilitators.

Yes, individuals are responsible for their own behaviour, but airports and airlines should not hand them a lethal weapon that puts passengers and air crew at risk from passive drinking.

On other forms of public transport, you can move seat or carriage to avoid a drunk, and the next stop is never that far away. But on an aeroplane, you are trapped in your seat. And imagine the fear of those passengers with babies and small children to protect.

What if those disruptive passengers have the seats in the emergency exit aisles? When my husband and I occupied those seats on one of our flights, we were not allowed to have any bags at all on the floor or under the seat in front on take-off and landing in case we blocked the emergency exit.

The cabin crew were very strict about that. Yet there were no qualms about serving alcohol to people in those seats – yes, the very people who held your life in their hands if there was actually an emergency. Because the rest of us would have to rely on them to be compos mentis enough to understand and follow instructions on how to open the emergency exit to allow fellow passengers out. The airline, however, thought it was perfectly OK to have these key passengers’ brains and senses dulled by alcohol.

In fact, how can they expect any drunken passenger to be fit to follow any of their safety instructions correctly? How would they be able to distinguish between the toggle and the whistle on the inflatable safety jacket?

When yet another flight is downed, whether by terrorism or by alcohol or by accident, safety comes under scrutiny again. Yet alcohol is never mentioned.

It seems to be a given that passengers on public transport have the right to drink alcohol or to travel when they are already drunk.

Judging by what happened on board the EasyJet flight on Saturday, alcohol is a ticking timebomb that’s just waiting to go off. For one day, it will bring down a flight and all on board – and it should be the airports and airlines who are held responsible.

The Argus:

A chronic back problem can limit your life and yet needn’t limit your enjoyment of life, I’ve discovered.

Two weeks after being diagnosed with two dodgy discs at the base of my spine (it was a little more scientific than that) and being told my condition is not likely to improve any time soon, my husband almost cancelled a short holiday to the rugged island of Capri to celebrate my 50th birthday.

Thank heavens he didn’t, because we wouldn’t have discovered one of the most glorious places I’ve ever been to.

This Mediterranean island off Naples is filled with natural treasures, jagged limestone crags rising dramatically out of the blue sea, the famous Blue Grotto and the Green Grotto, its lemon groves and its terrifyingly steep mountainous vistas – and manmade ones, such as the picturesque villas, designer shops, the funicular, the cable cars and its Roman villas.

My back pain made it impossible for us to visit most of these tourist attractions.

But a tourist boat took us on a stunning trip around the entire island and to the Green Grotto, a spectacular sea cave where the water glows electric green, we took the funicular up an almost sheer rock face from the port to the main town, and in between we were forced to console ourselves for being unable to do the usual touristy things by mooching from cafe to restaurant for divine Capri food served by divine Capri waiters and waitresses in divine Capri.

But, what you don’t see, you don’t miss, and a limited experience is worth a million times more than no experience at all.