A veteran Captain for European low-cost airline EasyJet has been suspended after it was alleged that he stripped naked in a bar during a heavy drinking session in a crew layover hotel.
If that wasn’t enough, however, the Captain was reportedly set to fly hundreds of passengers just hours after the debaucherous binge session that culminated in the pilot dropping his pants at 2:30 am.
The incident occurred in the early hours of August 5 when the pilot and several other crew members were on a layover on the islands of Cape Verde, which is located off the west coast of Africa.
The Captain had been due to operate EasyJet flight EZ-8996 from the main airport of Espargos to London Gatwick Airport. The flight was due to depart at 3:05 pm on August 6, but EasyJet managed to get a replacement pilot to Cape Verde in time to prevent a delay.
According to The Sun, the EasyJet crew were staying at a luxury five-star resort hotel where the Captain took part in an hours-long drinking session that culminated in him “shuffling” naked around the hotel.
It’s understood that some of the guests at the hotel who were due to fly home on the same flight that the Captain was expected to operate knew he was their pilot and reported what they had seen to the airline.
“As soon as we were made aware, the pilot was immediately stood down from duty, in line with our procedures, pending an investigation,” a spokesperson for EasyJet explained in a statement.
“The safety of our passengers and crew is EasyJet’s highest priority,” the statement continued.
Layovers Are Few And Far Between For EasyJet Crew
Like many low-cost airlines in Europe, EasyJet tries to avoid the expense of having pilots and cabin crew stay overnight in hotels during layovers, which is commonly favored by legacy carriers that operate so-called ‘hub and spoke’ models.
Instead, EasyJet operates ‘point-to-point’ flights out of small crew bases dotted across Europe. This allows the airline to start and end the working day of planes and crew at the same base every day.
On rare occasions, however, EasyJet has little option but to have crew layovers. This is commonly because the flights are so long that the crew would run out of legal working hours.
From time to time, we hear stories of pilots and cabin crew behaving badly during layovers, and it’s the result of drinking too much – or on some rare occasions, because of drugs.
In April 2022, a series of embarrassing incidents involving British Airways crew at a luxury hotel in the Maldives resulted in the management banning crew from buying an all-inclusive package.
The tipping point came when a new-hire crew member on only her fourth flight was found in a drunken stupor on the beach.
There seems to be a fair number of these stories that involve British crew, although it’s not just the Brits who sometimes let drink get the better of them during layovers.
Last April, Japan Airlines was forced to cancel a flight from Dallas Fort Worth to Tokyo Haneda due to the Captain’s drunk and rowdy behavior in the crew layover hotel.
