MOSCOW, July 30 (RAPSI) – The Moscow City Court has awarded Aeroflot a record-large compensation of about 1 million rubles ($28,000), to be collected from Vladimir Rakhimov for a drunken brawl on a Tenerife-Moscow flight, Kommersant newspaper writes on Wednesday.

The largest compensation Aeroflot had ever been awarded was slightly more than 700,000 rubles ($19,645). The Gagarinsky District Court in Moscow fined Andrei Krivoruchko for this amount after a drunken brawl forced the crew of a Moscow-Shanghai flight to make an unscheduled landing in Novosibirsk.

In December 2012, Rakhimov quarreled with his wife and then turned on passengers who tried to bring him to his senses. The crew decided that the brawl was dangerous for the plane’s safety and returned to Tenerife, where the drunken passenger was handed over to police, the newspaper writes.
Aeroflot said it was a unique hearing. “We have about a thousand drunken inflight brawls every year. The fine [for minor disturbances] is 500 rubles ($14).We only initiate court proceedings in exceptional cases,” a company representative said.

A draft law stipulating criminal and administrative responsibility for passengers who violate inflight security regulations was submitted to the State Duma in early June. Under this bill, air carriers would be able to refuse to sell tickets to those who have violated inflight regulations within the previous five years, and the Criminal Code would be amended to introduce a new legally defined crime: “violation of inflight security regulations by a passenger.”

Aeroflot has proposed that inflight brawls be considered a criminal offence punishable by up to 10 years in prison.