Wanna Fly Drunk? Wanna Reach Your Destination? Then Do NOT Fly Monarch Airlines

By ANN Associate Editor Rob Finfrock

With the holiday season waning and the New Year fast approaching, the gang at ANN thought we'd take the time to share this fractured -- but true -- fairy tale, for any of you who may be feeling a little low on holiday cheer.

Our story begins one holiday night, on a Monarch Airlines flight (sorry -- inadvertent rhyme) from England to the Spanish island of Tenerife. Seems a certain passenger onboard was giving the cabin crew a fair bit of grief, especially as he'd imbibed more than a fair amount of holiday cheer -- i.e., alcohol. Clearly, something had to be done -- the man needed to be escorted from the aircraft, and quickly.

As in, right now.

The plane's destination, Tenerife, was simply too far away -- and it's impossible to actually open the doors and dump someone off an airliner while in flight. So, the Airbus's pilot found an alternative: the lovely island of Porto Santo (above), aptly described in media reports as "a volcanic outcrop in the Atlantic."

And hey, it even had an airport -- a relic from the earliest days of the Cold War, back when NATO considered placing a frontline base on the Portuguese island, according to the Daily Mail.

You can guess what happened next: police met the aircraft, and escorted the drunken man off. And then the plane flew on to Tenerife... leaving the man behind... in a jail... on an island barely 40 square miles in area... described, it bears repeating, as a "volcanic outcrop."

(That sound you may be hearing right now, is the cheering of thousands of airline pilots -- past and present -- wishing they'd had the guts to deal with similarly aggravating passengers in the same manner... were it not for the lack of conveniently placed volcanic outcrops, say, on a flight from Detroit to Las Vegas.)

Porto Santo isn't exactly a well-travelled tourist destination -- nearly all visitors flock to nearby Madeira instead, leaving the island's half-dozen hotels and few beaches relatively empty -- which presented an interesting quandary: just how, exactly, did this particular Gilligan ever get off the island?

Well, after he was released from custody, the man -- whose name was not given -- took a ferry to Madeira, and caught another flight. We assume he was sober this time around, and presented relatively little fuss. (He's scheduled to appear in a mainland Portuguese court in January)

Meanwhile, the flight the man was originally on landed on Tenerife about four hours late due to the ordeal -- and while we're sure some passengers were upset with the delay, no doubt they were consoled by the great story they had to tell on arrival.

The Daily Mail was unable to reach anyone at Monarch for comment on the incident.

FMI: www.flymonarch.com (But Only If You're Sober!)