Ryanair is demanding $15,000 in compensation from the “problem passenger”.

CNN
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Ryanair, Europe’s largest airline, is cracking down on unruly passengers on its flights and demanding €15,000 ($15,400) in damages from a passenger who disrupted a flight last year.

An Irish low-cost airline announced on Wednesday that it had filed legal action against a passenger it said disrupted a flight from Dublin to Lanzarote, Spain, last April.

“The inexcusable behavior of this passenger forced this flight to be diverted to Porto, where it was detained overnight, causing unnecessary disruption to 160 passengers,” the airline said in a statement posted online.

The airline said it had filed a claim in the Irish District Court to recover costs related to the delay, including overnight accommodation costs, passenger costs and boarding costs.

There have been several reports of unsavory behavior on Ryanair flights in recent years.

In November, Britain’s Independent newspaper reported that a Ryanair flight had to alert authorities before landing in Tenerife, Spain, after several passengers behaved outrageously and one person urinated in the aisle.

A passenger who hijacked a Ryanair flight to Athens in 2020 was convicted in a Greek court last month and given a five-month suspended prison sentence and a €400 ($412) fine.

“This demonstrates just one of the many consequences passengers who disrupt flights will face as part of Ryanair’s zero tolerance policy,” an airline spokesperson said in a statement.

A Ryanair spokesman declined to give CNN details of the incident, but said it was the first time the company had taken a civil action against a passenger in Ireland, marking a new approach to dealing with unruly passenger behaviour.

“We are planning to take civil action against the passengers who violate the order as a measure to exclude unpleasant behavior on the part of the passengers,” added the spokesperson.

CNN’s Hannah Ziyadi contributed to this report.